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 Valerievich was born on October 10, 1984in Leningrad. His father is Valery Semenovich Durov - doctor of philology, head of the department of classical philology at St. Petersburg State University.
For the first time at school, Pavel Durov sat inTurin, where at that time his father worked. A few years later, the family returned to Russia. After a short training at a regular school, Durov became a student of an academic gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.
Pavel Valerievich studied four in depthforeign language. In connection with poor eyesight, he always sat at the first desk. Already at the age of 11, Paul became interested in programming. Hacking a computer network and selecting passwords for computers in the computer science office are well-known pranks with which Pavel Durov sinned. The biography of the future Russian entrepreneur continues in the university of St. Petersburg.
По окончании Академической гимназии Дуров He continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology at SPSU with a degree in English Philology and Translation. In his student years he won the scholarship of the President and the Government of the Russian Federation, was three times the winner of the Potaninsky scholarship.
In parallel with his studies in high school, he passedtraining at the military faculty in the specialty "Propaganda and psychological warfare". At university, he served as a platoon commander in his department. At the end of military training Durov was promoted to lieutenant reserve. In 2006, he graduated with a red diploma, but he still hasn’t taken him from the university.
During his student years, Pavel Durov started workingover several projects designed to simplify the search for information needed by students and to improve the quality of scientific and social activities of their university.
Such projects were electronic library.University Abstracts (durov.com) and a forum for students at St. Petersburg State University (spbgu.ru). They did not bring any financial benefit to their creator, but only helped to communicate to students from different universities.
After some time he became disillusionedexisting in RuNet system of organization of user accounts, where people could hide under any names and avatars. Finding another form of realization of combining Internet users is the goal that Pavel Durov set himself at that time.
After a while, Paul met hisan old friend who came back from the USA where he studied. He told Durov about the Facebook student project. There users posted real photos and information. Pavel liked this idea, and he decided to create a similar association in the Russian-speaking Internet space.
Pavel Durov with brother Nikolay October 1, 2006open 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 in the testing and development stage. Register in it could only by invitation. Already in December, Durov opened "VKontakte" for free registration. During the first days of open access, over 2000 users registered on the site.
At the initial stage of the project promotion is veryIt was successfully accomplished through viral marketing and multiple contests for users. By the end of 2006, servers no longer cope with the ever-growing number of users, in connection with which the servers were replaced and the software network support was improved. In 2007, Durov receives numerous offers to buy a project, but he refuses them and continues to unwind the network, attracting investors. In the same year, VKontakte becomes one of the three most visited sites on the Runet.
In 2008, the number of users exceeded20 million mark. At the same time, the monetization of the project started: advertising, gaming applications, which began to bring a certain percentage of the project’s revenues to program developers.
Any popular and profitable project.attracts hackers, spammers and others. VKontakte is no exception. The site was repeatedly infected and became a peddler of viruses. In addition, the site attempted to expand the porn industry, so the developers did not have to sit idle.
Durov and his brainchild were repeatedly servedclaims for copyright infringement (for placing 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 must be held accountable.
In 2011, VKontakte was seriously changed asexternally and functionally. There are new items: a pop-up message box, convenient photo viewing, the ability to add video files from popular video hosting sites and other useful features.
By the end of 2010, the value of the company was estimated at $ 1.5 billion. According to official data, the authorized capital of VKontakte at that time was divided as follows:
According to these data, the state of Pavel Durov on2011 was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles. But this figure may not correspond to reality. One "Happy Farmer" brings about 10 million dollars a year, and in fact other, equally popular applications work.
From December 2011, he begins financingdifferent startups selected on a competitive basis, and already in December six of them received $ 25 thousand from an entrepreneur. In January 2012, Durov donated a million dollars for the development of Wikipedia.
In November of the same year, Nikolay Kononov presenteddocumentary book "Durov Code" dedicated to the development of "VKontakte". The right to film it was immediately acquired by AR Films. As for Paul, he reacted extremely negatively to the film adaptation. Despite his position, the film will be released in 2014.
Pavel Durov, whose personal life is of considerable interest primarily for the beautiful half of humanity, does not attend social events, occasionally appears in public.
He is a workaholic, uncommunicative, polite.Pavel almost completely devoted himself to business. Pavel Durov, whose personal life does not give rest to the press, does not say anything about it. Therefore, various rumors are spread, not confirmed by the facts.
Despite the status of a billionaire, Durov shootsapartment near the office where he works. His idols are Steve Jobs, Che Guevara. He is negative about Facebook and calls it a “sinking ship.” Durov is very aggressive in doing business.
Known for his "war" with the company Mail.ru Group, which is one of the largest shareholders of VKontakte. In 2011, she wanted to absorb and unite the social network with Odnoklassniki. The conflict between Durov and the editors of the newspaper Vedomosti, which is connected with the innovation of the site, which allows you to watch the news of various resources without having to follow active links, is well known.
Критике подвергаются как эксцентричные поступки, so and harsh statements, which often makes Pavel Durov. The 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 blessing of a kupchik", and the words of the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky were even harsher: "A person who treats people like cattle should get the profession of sewing mechanics in the area."
May 26, 2012 at the office of Durov were scatteredairplanes with attached banknotes. Eyewitnesses believe that Pavel Durov organized it, whose photo on the balcony during the turmoil outside the building is a confirmation, and he does not deny it.
On the eve of Victory Day on May 9 of the same year Durovbrought 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 in protest deleted their accounts from VKontakte. Some time later, a spokesman for VKontakte said that Durov’s harsh statement was due to the fact that his grandfather, who had gone through the war from beginning to end, was later repressed, and Pavel himself respects Victory Day.
Many are interested in the question:"Pavel Durov sold" VKontakte "?" In part, this is true. It is known that on January 4, 2014, Durov sold his shares to Ivan Tavrin, CEO of Megafon. 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 does not plan to return. Before he left, the vice-president and financial director of the social network quit.
Иван Стрешинский, являющийся генеральным director of USM Advisors and owning a 52% stake in VKontakte, said: “We were surprised when Durov did not withdraw his resignation letter, and the owners of VKontakte satisfied his decision a month later. We have always believed that the role of Pavel Durov is very important for the company. We regret that he decided to leave the post of general director. ”
Despite all this, the fact remains thatPavel Durov sold VKontakte and left his brainchild. He related 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 of Russia and plans to launch a mobile social network, but abroad. Telegram of Pavel Durov will appear this year.
Многие восхищаются талантом и трудолюбием яркой и Paul's eccentric personality, others despise, hinting at plagiarism and huge profits. He was credited with serving in the FSB, financing the state by his offspring and the fact that he was just a beautiful sign of the VKonakte project.
Durov always denied all these rumors on a personal page. Despite all this, his social network is an incredible success, which speaks volumes.
На странице Дурова есть такое высказывание:“Those who do, and not talk, are very few. In any case, they are much smaller than they might seem. Do not waste time. A person is led to the success of his actions, not words. ”
