VK founder Pavel Durov, whose biography is filled with a mass of rumors and contradictions, is one of the youngest Russian billionaires and a very extraordinary person. Like any other story of great success, the life of a young man is distinguished by a very active professional position, bold decisions and confident steps towards achieving goals. Now VK is a social network that has become an integral part of the lifestyle of most Russians, and the fortune of Pavel Durov is estimated at $ 0.6 billion.
Childhood and youth
Durov Pavel Valerievich was born on October 10, 1984, the place of birth is Leningrad. The Durov family was distinguished by intelligence and education.
Pavel’s father Valery Semenovich heads the Department of Classical Philology at St. Petersburg University, and his mother has two higher educations. The brother is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. According to Pavel Durov, the family had a serious impact on the formation of his personality, thanks to hard work and the right attitude even in difficult times.
For the first time, Pavel went to school in Turin. At this time, the family lived in Italy. A few years later, the Durovs again moved to St. Petersburg, and the boy was forced to continue his studies at an ordinary school, but this did not last long.
After a short period of time, it became clear to both parents and teachers that this child has no place among ordinary schoolchildren and teachers, whom he often reproached for lack of professionalism. As a result, Pavel Durov was transferred to the Academic Gymnasium, where he was surrounded by the same gifted children. He studied well, constantly sitting at the first desk due to poor vision.
From an early adolescence, Durov gained a reputation as a rather cruel joker and provoked a cautious attitude from his peers. Having learned to program, he hacked into educational computers and installed screensavers on them, which made fun of a teacher.
University studies and first projects
Programming has become a common hobby for both brothers. But after graduating from high school, when they entered St. Petersburg University, Pavel unexpectedly chose the Faculty of Philology, while his brother Nikolai continued his education in the physical and mathematical direction.
As a student, Paul used this time to the maximum. He did not just study, but tried to create something new, constantly experimenting and turning to his programming abilities. At the same time, he successfully mastered linguistics and design, constantly winning olympiads in these disciplines.
The first attempt to create a community on the network was the creation of the site durov.com, where students could share educational materials with each other, so that it would be very convenient and appreciated by classmates. Having reached the goal, Pavel left this resource unattended and took up other projects.
The next brainchild of Durov was the website of the university spbgu.ru. The future billionaire paid particular attention to the possibilities of communication on the site’s forum, trying to enrich it as much as possible and bring it closer to communication in real life. So, groups of friends, communities and other first signs of social networks began to appear on the site’s forum. Users noted the fundamental differences between this resource and similar ones: students could indicate real names, affiliation with departments, etc., which at that time was an unusual, but very convenient innovation.
Like other projects of Durov, spbgu.ru did not aim to make a profit. And despite the enormous popularity of the resource among students, the site did not contain advertising banners, with the exception of those related to education.
The origin of the idea of ​​"Vkontakte"
Even then, Paul realized that he wanted to continue to engage in similar projects, to come up with and create something new, but he certainly did not go on a routine work every day on schedule. Routine, monotony and bureaucracy were alien to him to such an extent that he even refused to take his linguist diploma from the university.
Studying was easy for him, and as a student, the future ruble billionaire showed strong leadership qualities, which allowed him to become a three-time winner of the Potanin scholarship, as well as a scholarship holder of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation.
Despite the impressive success of the university website, Durov did not stop thinking about the idea of ​​creating a larger community that would bring together not only students, but also graduates, because it was assumed that communication between people after graduation should not be lost. During this period, his classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who was studying at an American university at that time, contacted him. From St. Petersburg newspapers, he learned about Durov’s success in creating and promoting the site spbgu.ru, and told a gifted classmate about the rapidly gaining popularity of the social network facebook.com.
Vkontakte launch
Friends of childhood and other Russian programmers joined forces and ideas, and already on October 1, 2006, the vkontakte.ru domain was officially registered. Initially, the ideas of the name were associated with attracting students, but in the end, in order not to be limited only to the student environment, a more general phrase “in contact” was chosen as the name. Launch money was borrowed from one of the companies owned by the father of Vyacheslav Mirilashvili.
The rapid development of the social network, the first investors
Initially, registration was possible only by invitation and was carried out only by name and surname. Since December 2006, the social network Vkontakte has become fully operational. First, users were attracted through competitions, according to which the one who will attract the most registered users will receive a gift. Then, when free registration was opened, the number of visitors began to grow rapidly, and Durov had to take care of the stable operation of the servers. After the first year of operation of the social network, it became clear that it required multimillion-dollar investments, and there was nowhere to take funds from. Ideas about advertising and other monetization were cut off, the search for investments was started. So, 24.99% of the company was acquired by the largest Internet investor Yuri Milner. He extolled Durov's business idea, his abilities and was inclined not to interfere in the matter, which was quite suitable for the founder of Vkontakte LLC.
Forced Monetization
VK - a social network designed to expand communication opportunities, to make it more convenient and affordable, and not a means of profit-making - such was Durov's initial point of view on his offspring. However, the sixteen million dollars that the deal with Milner brought was not enough to cover all the expenses that a growing social network required.
And the problem of overloaded servers and security was becoming more and more urgent. Then, in 2008, Pavel Durov took the first steps to monetize the resource - paid “voices”, gifts and contextual advertising appeared. Then the social network "Vkontakte" totaled more than twenty million users.
Updating and Enhancing Features
In 2011, the site changed functionally and visually, which at first was perceived by users quite contradictory. A familiar wall has turned into a microblog, likes have appeared, viewing photos has become more convenient and more functional, it has become possible to add videos from other resources. Despite the indignation of some of Vkontakte’s regular visitors, everyone quickly got used to the new look and content, and the talented programmer once again confirmed his reputation as a person who is constantly working to improve the quality of the proposed product. At that time, the fortune of Pavel Durov was estimated at 8 billion rubles.
Conflicts with Copyright Advocates
The inevitable confrontation of a popular social network with copyright advocates. Very quickly, Vkontakte was flooded with numerous films, videos, music, the number of which became the subject of endless debate about the legality of such content.
The All-Russian State TV and Radio Company even sued the social network, the key was the requirement to remove its content from Vkontakte. Despite the fact that most of the Internet resources that faced such a requirement went on about the VGTRK, Durov resolutely refused, and won the trial. His position was and remains the conviction that the meaning and essence of the Internet is in the freedom of dissemination of information. However, in some disputes with copyright holders, he still had to meet. Currently, illegally placed films and music are being removed from VK, which generally does not reduce the high information content that the resource has achieved over the years of its existence.
Ambitious development plans
The state of Pavel Durov grew rapidly with the number of users. But despite the tremendous success of the social network created by the Excellent Students Corporation, Durov always realized that Vkontakte, being a Russian-language resource, could not develop indefinitely, while Western analogues with a predominant English language had much wider possibilities in this direction. In this regard, Durov began to actively strive for international development guidelines. The first step was to rename the domain, which acquired a shorter and more convenient sound for users from different countries - vk.com.
How Durov was "not in contact"
The purchase of a quarter of the corporation's shares in 2008 marked the beginning of the gradual transfer of Vkontakte LLC to other hands. Durov invariably clashed with law enforcement agencies and courts, which weakened his position as CEO of the company. After refusing to block the page of one of the opposition, he even had to deal with representatives of the FSB, who visited his office with guns, despite the fact that he gave quite intelligible explanations for his decision - he was afraid of the outflow of regular visitors to other resources, and believed that the prohibition of something on one site does not prevent users from finding the same thing on another.
Claims of Mail.ru Group on the company's shares did not stop. In 2013, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev, who founded VK together with Durov, sold their stake to the UCP fund without agreeing on this decision with the main founder, who remained at the helm, but with only 12% of the company’s shares.
In 2014, the corporation underwent serious personnel changes initiated by new shareholders. The positions of Durov, who continued to be subjected to various kinds of accusations (including the unjustified waste of company funds, the development of new projects competing with VK, etc.), became even more unreliable. On April 1, they submitted a letter of resignation from the post of CEO, due to the fact that it became increasingly difficult for him to uphold the principles of the functioning of the social network, which were laid down at the time of its creation. He later also sold his stake in the company. The condition of Pavel Durov, however, is still the subject of discussion by well-wishers and envious people.
Interesting Facts
It is known that VK founder Pavel Durov, whose biography is replete with various rumors, adheres to libertarian views, is a vegetarian and does not drink alcohol. In addition to the enthusiastic work on the creation and development of various kinds of projects, he loves to travel, and can visit dozens of countries in a year. At the same time, he is not a fan of luxury, and despite the fact that a year after the launch of Vkontakte, he became one of the richest Internet entrepreneurs, he got to work by public transport and lived in a tiny rented apartment.
Often Pavel Durov found himself in the center of high-profile scandals. One of them broke out in St. Petersburg on City Day in 2012, when Pavel, leaning out of the window of his office, threw five-thousand-dollar bills attached to paper planes into the crowd. At first glance, the innocent joke turned into an action that was condemned in all circles. However, Paul himself explained this by the desire to hold a festive event. According to him, he did not expect such a violent reaction of the people.
Science and programming support
The name of Pavel Durov is associated not only with the most popular social network in Russia, but also with active charitable activities. He organized many competitions for young programmers from around the world. A distinctive feature of his sponsorship has always been the lack of material interest. Unlike other sponsors of such events, he did not seek to obtain further benefits from the young specialists whom he supported.
Currently, Pavel Durov, whose fortune (Forbes) is $ 0.6 billion, is among the 200 richest Russian businessmen, occupying 135th place in this rating.