Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, shared three pieces of advice his dad gave him for leading the messaging app.
“A month ago, my father — a leading expert in Ancient Roman literature — turned 80. I asked what advice I should pass to the next generation,” the Russian entrepreneur wrote in a post on X on Thursday.
Valery Durov was head of classical philology — the study of language in historical sources — at St Petersburg State University until 2013, the year Pavel cofounded the encrypted messaging service with his brother Nikolai.
Durov shared his father’s advice on the 12th anniversary of Telegram’s founding. He said his father’s first tip was to lead by example because, “People — especially kids — follow what you do, not what you say.”
“Watching my father work tirelessly on numerous books and scientific papers showed me and my brother the meaning of dedication and inspired us to work hard too,” Durov added.
Durov said his father’s second piece of advice was to focus on the positive.
“Growing up in post-war Leningrad, my father learned to control emotions to be a positive force for his family, colleagues, and society,” Durov wrote. “He taught me to frame thoughts in ways that bring the most good, even in hard times.”
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The tech billionaire said his father’s final advice stemmed from his study and translation of figures like Julius Caesar and Seneca.
Valery Durov advised prioritising conscience, his son wrote on X, because he believed a person’s moral compass, “unlike intelligence or creativity, is the ultimate human quality that will not lose value even in the age of AI,” he said.
Durov said in March that the app has a billion active users and called WhatsApp “a cheap, watered-down imitation of Telegram.”
Durov was arrested in France last August over claims Telegram was being used by criminals to facilitate money laundering, drug trafficking, and other offenses.
He later said the app had faced some “growing pains” that made it easier for criminals to abuse but added, “Claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue.”
He later announced Telegram had changed its user data and privacy policies to respond to law enforcement requests for criminal users’ details.
