Pavel Durov built VK, Russia's Facebook, then fled the country after refusing to hand over user data to the government. He created Telegram, which now has a billion users run by just 30 people, and turned down $40 billion valuations to keep it independent.
This guy's worth about $15 billion. Pavel Durov, James Bond with Wi-Fi. When he was young, he built the Facebook of Russia and it was called VK. He had to sell it because the Russian government approaches him and says, Pavel, we need some information about all your users and what they're saying. Not only doesn't comply, he posts on VK, they're asking for your data. I'll never do it. And here's my official response. And he posted a picture of a dog wearing a hoodie. Immediately gets kicked out of Russia. He loses his company. He does get $300 million because he sells it on the way out. But he's like, dude, I can't even message my brother. They'll just see these messages. Let's make an encrypted messaging protocol so that we can communicate. And this becomes Telegram. How big is Telegram? It's got a billion users. He's got 30 full-time employees running a service that a billion people use all around the world. He had offers to sell 10% at a $30 billion valuation. Oh my God. He turned it down. Then they came back and said, we'll buy 10% at a $40 billion valuation. So $4 billion. He turned it down. This guy's really cool.
