The condition of Pavel Durov. The creator of the social network "VKontakte"

Founder of VK Pavel Durov, whose biography is full of rumors and contradictions, is one of the youngest Russian billionaires and a very unordinary man. Like any other story of great success, the life of a young man is marked 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 condition of Pavel Durov is estimated at $ 0.6 billion.

Childhood and youth

Durov Pavel Valerevich was born on October 10, 1984, the birthplace is Leningrad. Durova's family was distinguished by their intelligence and education. Father Pavel Valery Semyonovich leads the Department of Classical Philology of St. Petersburg University, his mother - two higher education. The brother is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. According to Paul Durov, the family had a serious impact on the formation of his personality, thanks to diligence and the right attitude even in difficult times.

For the first time in school Paul went to Turin. At this time, the family lived in Italy. A few years later, the Duros moved back 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, both parents and teachers realized that this child does not belong to ordinary schoolchildren and teachers, whom he often reproached for lack of professionalism. As a consequence, 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 because of poor vision.

Since the early adolescence, Durov has acquired a reputation as a rather cruel joker and has evoked a cautious attitude from his peers. Learning to program, he hacked educational computers and installed on them screensavers that ridiculed the teacher.

University studies and first projects

Programming has become a common passion for both brothers. But after graduating from the gymnasium, when they entered St. Petersburg University, Pavel unexpectedly chose a philological faculty for everyone, 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. Simultaneously, he successfully mastered linguistics and design, constantly winning the 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 learning materials with each other, so that it was very convenient and appreciated by classmates. Having achieved the goal, Pavel left this resource unattended and started other projects.

The next brainchild of Durov was the site of the university spbgu.ru. Particular attention was paid to the future billionaire communication opportunities on the forum site, trying to maximize its enrichment and bring it closer to real life communications. So, the forum of the site began to appear groups of friends, communities and other first signs of social networks. Users noted the fundamental differences of this resource from similar ones: students could indicate real names, membership in 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 colossal popularity of the resource among students, the site did not contain advertising banners, except those that had to do with education.

The origin of the idea of "Vkontakte"

Even then, Paul realized that he wanted to continue to engage in similar projects, invent and create something new, but certainly not to go every day to routine work on schedule. Routine, monotony and bureaucracy were alien to him to the point that he even refused to take his linguistic diploma from the university.

Studying was easy for him, and already being a student, the future ruble billionaire demonstrated strong leadership qualities, which allowed him to become a threefold winner of the Potanin scholarship, as well as being a grant holder of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation.

Despite the impressive success of the university site, Durov never ceased to think about the idea of creating a larger community that would unite not only students but also graduates, as it was assumed that communication between people after graduation should not be lost. During this period, his classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who at that time was studying at an American university, contacted him. From St. Petersburg newspapers, he learned about the success of Durov in creating and spinning the site spbgu.ru, and told a gifted classmate about the rapidly growing popularity of the social network facebook.com.

The launch of Vkontakte

Friends of childhood and other Russian programmers united their efforts and ideas, and already on October 1, 2006 the domain vkontakte.ru was officially registered. Initially, the idea of the title was associated with the involvement of 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. The money for launching was borrowed from one of the firms owned by Father Vyacheslav Mirilashvili.

Rapid development of the social network, the first investors

Initially, registration was possible only on invitations and was carried out only by name and surname. Since December 2006 the social network Vkontakte has earned its full power. At first, users were attracted by means of contests, under which the one who will attract the most registered will receive a gift. Then, when the 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 the social network, it became clear that it requires multimillion-dollar investments, and there was nowhere to take money. Ideas about advertising and other monetization were cut off, the search for attachments was started. Thus, 24.99% of the company was acquired by the largest Internet investor Yuri Milner. He extolled the business idea of Durov, his ability and was inclined not to interfere in the matter, which was quite acceptable to the founder of OOO Vkontakte.

Forced monetization

VK - a social network designed to expand the possibilities of communication, make it more convenient and accessible, and not a means of profit - this was Durov's initial point of view on his offspring. However, the sixteen million dollars that the deal brought with Milner was not enough to cover all the expenses that the growing social network required. And the problem of overloaded servers and security became more and more urgent. Then, in 2008, Pavel Durov took the first steps to monetize the resource - there were paid "votes", gifts and contextual advertising. Then the social network "Vkontakte" already had more than twenty million users.

Upgrade and expand capabilities

In 2011, the site changed functionally and visually, which at first was perceived by users rather inconsistently. The habitual wall turned into microblogging, the likes appeared, it became more convenient and more functional to view photos, it became possible to add video from other resources. Despite the resentment of a part of the regular visitors to Vkontakte, everyone was quickly accustomed to the new look and content, and the talented programmer once again confirmed his reputation as a person who constantly works to improve the quality of the proposed product. At that time, the state of Pavel Durov was estimated at 8 billion rubles.

Conflicts with copyright advocates

The confrontation of the popular social network with copyright advocates was inevitable. Very quickly Vkontakte flooded with numerous films, videos, music, the number of which became the subject of endless disputes about the legality of such content.

The All-Russian State TV and Radio Company even sued the social network, the key was the demand to remove from Vkontakte the contents that belonged to it. Despite the fact that most of the Internet resources faced with such a demand went on the occasion of VGTRK, Durov responded with a resolute refusal, and won this court. His position was and remains the belief that the meaning and essence of the Internet in the freedom of information dissemination. Nevertheless, in some disputes with the rights holders, he still had to go to a meeting. Currently, the "VC" removes illegally placed movies, as well as music, which, in general, does not reduce the high information content that the resource has reached 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 "Honors Corp." Corporation, Durov always realized that Vkontakte, being a Russian-language resource, can not develop indefinitely, while for Western analogues with predominant English the possibilities in this direction are much wider. In this regard, Durov began actively to strive for international development benchmarks. The first step was to rename the domain, which acquired a shorter and more comfortable 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 OOO Vkontakte to other hands. Durov invariably encountered law enforcement agencies and courts, which weakened his position as CEO of the company. After refusing to block the page of one of the oppositionists, he had to face even representatives of the FSB who visited his office with machine guns, despite the fact that he gave quite intelligible explanations for his decision - he was afraid of outflow of regular visitors to other resources, and believed that Banning anything on one site, does not prevent users from finding the same on the other.

Claims Mail.ru Group on the company's shares did not stop. In 2013, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev, who founded the "VC" together with Durov, sold their stake to the UCP, not coordinating this decision with the main founder, who remained at the helm, but only 12% of the company.

In 2014, the corporation experienced serious personnel changes, initiated by new shareholders. Durov's position, which continued to be subjected to various charges (including the groundless waste of company funds, the development of new projects competing with the "VC", etc.), have become even more unreliable. On April 1, he was asked to resign from the post of CEO, because it became increasingly difficult for him to uphold the principles of the social network, which were laid at the time of its creation. Later, he also sold his stake in the company. The state of Pavel Durov, however, is still the subject of discussion of well-wishers and envious persons.

Interesting Facts

It is known that the founder of VK Pavel Durov, whose biography is full of 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 is very fond of traveling, and for a year can visit dozens of countries. At the same time, he is not a supporter 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 was at 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 in a crowd of five thousand bills attached to paper airplanes. Innocent at first glance, the joke grew into an action that was condemned in all circles. However, Paul himself explained this by the desire to hold a festive action. According to him, he did not expect such a violent reaction from the people.

Science and programming support

The name of Pavel Durov is connected not only with the most popular social network of Russia, but also with active charitable activity. They organized a lot of competitions for young programmers from around the world. A distinctive feature of his sponsorship was always the lack of material interest. Unlike other sponsors of similar events, he did not seek to obtain further benefits from young specialists who he supported.

Currently Pavel Durov, whose fortune ("Forbes") is 0.6 billion dollars, is among the 200 richest Russian businessmen, ranking 135 in this rating.