Pavel Durov: biography and personal life of the creator of "VKontakte"

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Pavel Durov is a Russian entrepreneur, programmer, one of the founders of the most popular social network in the CIS countries. Former CEO of VKontakte and one of the richest people in Russia.

Pavel Durov. Biography of a billionaire

Pavel Valeryevich was born on October 10, 1984 in Leningrad. His father is Valery Semenovich Durov - Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

The Russian billionaire has a brother - Nikolai Valerievich. He is also the technical director of VKontakte, who is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, as well as a two-time world champion among students in programming.

School years

For the first time, Pavel Durov sat at school in Turin, where his father worked at that time. A few years later, the family returned to Russia. After a short study in a regular school, Durov became a student of the academic gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.

Pavel Valeryevich studied four foreign languages in depth. Due to poor eyesight, he always sat at the first desk. From the age of 11, Pavel became interested in programming. Hacking a computer network and guessing passwords for computers inoffice of informatics - well-known pranks that Pavel Durov sinned. The biography of the future Russian entrepreneur continues at the University of St. Petersburg.

Higher education

After graduating from the Academic Gymnasium, Durov continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. In his student years, he became a laureate of the scholarship of the President and the Government of the Russian Federation, three times he was the laureate of the Potanin scholarship.

In parallel with his studies at the university, he was trained at the military faculty in the speci alty "Propaganda and psychological warfare." At the university, he served as a platoon leader in his faculty. At the end of military training, Durov received the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve. In 2006, he graduated with honors, but he has not taken it from the university until now.

During his student days, Pavel Durov began working on several projects designed to make it easier for students to find the information they need and to improve the quality of the scientific and social activities of his university.

First projects

The electronic library of university abstracts (durov.com) and the forum for St Petersburg University students (spbgu.ru) became such projects. They did not bring any financial benefit to their creator, but only helped students of different universities to communicate.

After some time, he became disillusioned with the existing system of organizing user accounts in Runet, where people could hide under any names and avatars. Finding another form of implementing the association of Internet users -the goal that Pavel Durov set for himself at that time.

VKontakte: creation and development of the project

After a while, Pavel met his old friend, who returned from the USA, where he was studying. He told Durov about the Facebook student project. Users posted real photos and information there. Pavel liked this idea, and he decided to create a similar association in the Russian-speaking Internet space.

Durov began to bring his idea to life after graduating from university. The original name of the project was Student.ru, but after a while it was changed to VKontakte. Durov explained this change by saying that in any case, students will become graduates.

Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai October 1, 2006 open a limited liability company, known to all of us as VKontakte, and register the first domain of the service. Until the end of the year, the project was at the stage of testing and development. Registration was by invitation only. Already in December, Durov opened VKontakte for free registration. During the first days of open access, more than 2,000 users have registered on the site.

At the initial stage, the promotion of the project was very successful through viral marketing and many contests for users. By the end of 2006, the servers could no longer cope with the constantly growing number of users, in connection with which the servers were replaced and the software support for the network was improved. In 2007, Durov received numerousoffers to buy the project, but he refuses them and continues to promote the network, attracting investors. In the same year, VKontakte became one of the three most visited Runet sites.

In 2008, the number of users exceeded 20 million. At the same time, the monetization of the project started: advertising, game applications, which began to bring software developers a certain percentage of the project's income.

Any popular and profitable project attracts hackers, spammers and others. VKontakte was no exception. The site was repeatedly infected and became a carrier of viruses. In addition, the site made attempts to expand the porn industry, so the developers did not have to sit idle.

Durov and his offspring were repeatedly sued for copyright infringement (for posting films and videos in the public domain on the site). But they did not end successfully for the plaintiffs, since VKontakte is a public resource, and certain users should be held responsible.

In 2011, VKontakte was seriously changed both externally and functionally. There are new features: a pop-up message box, convenient photo viewing, the ability to add video files from popular video hosting sites and other useful features.

Income of the creator of VKontakte

By the end of 2010, the company was valued at $1.5 billion. According to official data, the authorized capital of VKontakte at that time was divided as follows:

• Mikhail Mirilashvili -10%;
• Lev Leviev - 10%;
• Pavel Durov - 20%;
• Vyacheslav Mirilashvili - 60%.

According to these data, Pavel Durov's fortune in 2011 was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles. But this figure may not correspond to reality. One "Happy Farmer" brings in about $10 million a year, and there are other equally popular applications.

But still, based on official data, in 2011 Durov ranked 350th among the richest people in Russia, having 7.9 billion rubles ($260 million) in his accounts.

From December 2011, he began financing various startups selected on a competitive basis, and already in December six of them received $25,000 from the entrepreneur. In January 2012, Durov donated a million dollars to the development of Wikipedia.

In November of the same year, Nikolai Kononov presented the documentary book "Durov's Code", dedicated to the development of VKontakte. The film rights were immediately acquired by AR Films. As for Pavel, he reacted extremely negatively to the film adaptation. Despite his position, the film will be released in 2014.

What is he like, the founder of VKontakte, on a personal level?

Pavel Durov, whose personal life is of considerable interest primarily to the beautiful half of humanity, does not attend social events, occasionally appears in public. He is a workaholic, unsociable, polite. Pavel devoted himself almost entirely to running a business. PaulDurov, whose personal life does not give rest to the press, does not tell anything about it. Therefore, various rumors are spreading that are not confirmed by facts.

Business Views

Despite his billionaire status, Durov rents an apartment near the office where he works. His idols are Steve Jobs, Che Guevara. He has a negative attitude towards the social network Facebook and calls it a "sinking ship". Durov is very aggressive in doing business.

His "war" with Mail.ru Group, which is one of the largest shareholders of VKontakte, is known. In 2011, she wanted to absorb and merge the social network with Odnoklassniki. There is a known conflict between Durov and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper, related to the innovation of the site, which allows you to watch news from various resources without having to click on active links.

Criticism of Durov

Both eccentric acts and harsh statements that Pavel Durov often makes are criticized. A photo of the founder of VKontakte at the window of his office during the “money rain” immediately caused a flurry of criticism. Bloggers and journalists dubbed this trick “the whim of a merchant”, and the words of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky were even harsher: “A person who treats the people like cattle should get the profession of a seamstress-minder in the zone.”

On May 26, 2012, airplanes with banknotes attached were scattered near Durov's office. Eyewitnesses believe that Pavel Durov organized this, whose photo is on the balcony during the turmoil near the building - thatconfirmation, and he does not deny it.

On the eve of Victory Day on May 9 of the same year, Durov brought down the anger of many people with his statement on Twitter: "67 years ago, Stalin managed to defend the right to repress the people of the USSR from Hitler." Many bloggers and various public figures immediately condemned this post and deleted their accounts from VKontakte in protest. Some time later, a spokesman for VKontakte said that Durov's harsh statement was due to the fact that his grandfather, who went through the war from beginning to end, was later repressed, and Pavel himself respects Victory Day.

Farewell to your offspring

Many are interested in the question: "Pavel Durov sold VKontakte?" This is partly true. It is known that on January 4, 2014, Durov sold his shares to the CEO of Megafon, Ivan Tavrin. The founder of the most popular social network of the CIS countries filed a letter of resignation on March 21, and a month later his application was accepted. After that, Pavel Durov left VKontakte completely and has no plans to return. Before his departure, the vice president quit, as well as the financial director of the social network.

Ivan Streshinsky, who is the CEO of USM Advisors and owns a 52% stake in VKontakte, said: “We were surprised when Durov did not withdraw his resignation, and VKontakte owners satisfied his decision a month later. We have always considered that the role of Pavel Durov is very important for the company. We regret that he has decided to step down as CEO.”

Perhaps Durov will change his mind and return to the post of architect of VKontakte.

Despite all this, the fact remains that Pavel Durov sold VKontakte and left his offspring. He attributed his dismissal to the fact that he did not provide the FSB with personal information about people supporting Euromaidan.

Today, the founder of VKontakte is outside Russia and plans to launch a mobile social network, but abroad. Pavel Durov's Telegram will appear this year.

Conclusion

Many admire the talent and diligence of Pavel's bright and eccentric personality, others despise him, hinting at plagiarism and huge profits. He was credited with serving in the FSB, state funding of his offspring, and the fact that he was just a beautiful sign for the VKonakte project.

Durov always denied all these rumors on his personal page. Despite all this, his social network is an incredible success, which speaks volumes.

There is a statement on Durov's page: “There are very few of those who do, but do not talk. In any case, they are much less than it might seem. Don't waste time. A person is made successful by his actions, not his words.”