Pavel Durov, the creator of Telegram – a remarkable site – sat down with Tucker, and there were some revelations you should hear. He found a home in the UAE because of safety, infrastructure, freedom, and a great business environment. Mr. Durov said he has been all over the world but was only attacked in San Francisco. He was also approached at times by the FBI.
He said the largest pressure on Telegram isn’t coming from the government but from Apple and Google. The rules are general, but the application is political.
Durov doesn’t think things will get worse.
Durov applies the rules equally to all voices—he is completely neutral. He believes opening up to all ideas improves society.
Tech companies choosing governments and aligning with them is why he ended up in the UAE – of all places. They are neutral.
As he points out, privacy and freedom are critical for global information. While X is better than it was, it is still in the US, and Musk can’t be as free as Mr. Durov and his brilliant brother. Pavel Durov avoids money and assets. He is the sole owner of Telegram, which has 900 million users. Pavel owns no significant assets because his number one priority is freedom, not real estate or other investments, so he keeps his freedom. Pavel is the only product manager and he is the HR department.
IT’S ABOUT FREEDOM
He does all that to stay free.
Mr. Durov spoke with Jack Dempsey. Dempsey said he agreed that he only needed 20 people to run Twitter, but it would scare Wall Street if he started firing people.
That’s why Musk was able to fire 75% of his staff. Musk probably needed even fewer.
From an efficiency standpoint, a public company has more restrictions than a private company.
Mr. Durov has the best of the best engineers through competitions.
When asked about the NSA, he said they don’t work with you directly, so he has limited knowledge. Pavel agreed he is probably under a lot of surveillance and that his devices are compromised. After his experience in the US, he has very little faith in security.
The Telegram CEO is very optimistic about privacy and that new technology will come about to protect us. He also thinks people will get tired of what’s going on and move in another direction.
It’s a fascinating discussion; it is likely that he is the freest man on earth.
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