YouSaid · the spoken record

Pavel Durov

lines on the record: 212
first: 2025-10-01
most recent: 2025-10-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Thank you for saying that. I'm also incredibly grateful You and to the fact that I happen to be in this version of reality.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I admire your belief in the fact that we get to experience. This together because it's not obvious. Maybe each of us experiences his own or her own universe. And maybe every second the universe splits into a billion of different universes and everything that can happen happens. And there is a universe Say I died in 2013. Maybe every time I die, I actually get to shift to a parallel universe when I don't die. And then it keeps going. And at certain points, Achieve this quantum immortality when we are one thousand years old. But a lot of people from Other versions of reality Think we are long gone.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, over many, many, many days. It is possible to imagine our world as a high dimensional universe where humans have the ability to navigate through it with the power of belief. Which is coupled with Positive emotion Analogical thinking. But we are getting into an esoteric realm. Don't have any proof of that. But we also know that we probably at this point haven't discovered even 1%. About this universe.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are many explanations why it works. One thing most people agree on is that setting goals and staying positive and confident. Does allow you to achieve Things you want to achieve It's very hard to believe though that you can just manifest things into being without applying. Effort in the direction that seems to be logical. Maybe some people exist that can just sit on the bank of a river. And materialized things by the power of their thought, but I'm not sure in one of these people Always found it more easy to believe that if you couple this optimism and faith with Logical action. Then it is bound. Be successful”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Never despair. Be honest, and you know, he told me last time I spoke to him that AI can have consciousness, can be creative, but it cannot have conscience in a way cannot be moral. It cannot have been. Deeply rooted principles. Can it have integrity? In the meaning that we understand it as human beings.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Try to test the patience of my father. Straight rooted in our biology. There's an evolutionary explanation for that. Women sometimes tend to do that. And he demonstrated a credible patience all the time. He told me recently you shouldn't give the wrong example to the people around you and in particular to your kids because you can do the right thing nine times out of ten but you make a mistake once and they will instantly copy it. If you're telling your kids not to use a smartphone but you're using a smartphone all the time yourself And coming up with all kinds of sophisticated brilliant explanations why they shouldn't be using a smartphone. Won't land It's bound to fail. So you lead by example, and there are other numerous lessons staying positive, looking at the bright side.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm incredibly lucky Have my father, he's a person who wrote Countless books on ancient Rome and ancient Roman literature. Dozens of scientific papers and I always remember him working. He would be busy. Being his books and articles and an old school typewriter. Back in the late 80s, early nineties. He was relentless. The example he said to myself and my brother was priceless. Some people make this mistake of thinking that Can instill the right principles. In the future generation or into your kids by saying things to them. But kids are smart. They discount words, they look at the actions. Observing our Father. Was a big lesson by itself. Wasn't necessary for him to say anything to us. And then at the same time he was incredibly patient. Emotionally resilient. My mom, a great woman, incredibly smart, highly educated. Sometimes.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take care of us. It was not easy, but it also created purpose, it created meaning Great priorities. Allowed us to focus on things that mattered, allowed us to Develop our character and intellectual abilities. Now, if we had everything Why do anything This Suffer societal collapse. Was irreversible. Is not an accident, this kind of experiment has been repeated countless times. A certain point social dysfunction and the erosion of social roles becomes contagious. The society gradually degrades in to a chaotic collection of individuals unable to take care of the next generation or even to produce the next generation. And it goes extinct.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have evolved to overcome scarcity. Almost by definition there has never been such thing as Infinite amount of food Entertainment in our lives before We seem as specious to lose our ability Identify purpose in a world where you have everything and everything loses its meaning. Restrictions are important. I think though that they should be coming from within, it should be self-restriction rather than a restriction. To create purpose and meaning in life. In a way, I was lucky in a very Counterintuitive way because I grew up poor. I didn't have money when I was a teenager Had the same jacket for years. Which was bought on a second hand marketplace. My father wouldn't receive. His salary as a university professor for months Russian state was almost bankrupt back then. Mom had to. To jobs”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think over abundance Motivation and willpower. Is extremely harmful, particularly for young boys to grow up in an environment where they can be proud not of their own achievements, but of their own. Their fathers' achievements or their father's wealth. Rem The incentive to Work on developing their own skills Removes the incentive to study, to work So I thought if they're going to have this. Should be something that they would only get when they're already adult. It's still risky. But one of the reasons I decided it makes more sense to divide this. Huge wealth dead. I am likely to leave behind Hundred or more than a hundred people is that it won't be too much. For every single Descendant But at the same time Some people did the calculation. It's still. Many, many millions of dollars for each child, so I'm not sure It helps too much.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that made a lot of noise in the news for some reason. People get very excited by this kind of news. I got a lot of messages from people claiming they're my kids I get a lot of requests from people asking me to adopt them. The memes were priceless, but I understanding that It's not a thing that most people do. I don't see anything wrong with it. If anything I think more people should. Donating sperm.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then I realized it's actually a serious issue, and they were not the only couples struggling with that. So eventually I got persuaded into doing more of it. I can't say I'm incredibly proud of that, but I think it was the right thing to do, particularly at the time when I thought, okay, I probably don't have much time. This planet Things are getting trickier and trickier. So, if I can help some couples have babies, let's do it. Then more recently, when I was working on my will. I realized that. Shouldn't make a distinction between the kids conceived naturally. And the kids who are just my biological kids that I've never seen. As long as they can establish Shared DNA with me. Some day, maybe in thirty years from now. They have to be Entitled for a share of my estate after I'm gone.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Truthful answer to this question is: I don't really know how many biological kids I have exactly because at a certain point in my life about 15 years ago I decided. Was a good idea to be a sperm donor. Initially, a friend of my asked me to help. Because they were trying to have a baby with his wife. Experience certain health issues which had prevented them to do it in the natural way. And yes, me, he told me we don't want to just rely on some random anonymous genetic material. We want somebody we know and respect to be the biological father of our kid. And I said, Got to be kidding me sounds ridiculous. What are you even talking about?”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Asked a lot of questions about this walrus, his penis bone in the airport. Both here in the UAE and in France, they are always very interested in this thing.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a very interesting subject. The reason I have this is because Tribe that is almost gone in extinct in Siberia and Mongolia called Evenki passed me this gift from them. Normally they would craft something like this only for their most respected leaders. It is supposed to be a token of their appreciation for bravery courage, leadership. Ironically, it also translates In a very specific way into the Russian language. In Russian Walrus's penis means something a bit funny which is often used to describe nothing. So for example, if you're being requested By, say, certain government. A certain business partner Provide something that you're not willing to provide. You can just politely have this penis bone in the background while you're doing the video call. And hope that they would.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe this is the right answer. We often being manipulated Politicians, by corporate leaders. To make a choice from two suboptimal options, and then when we are forced to make this choice and we make this choice, it's almost as if It's something that we have to assume responsibility for. I don't think we should be buying into that.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Should have been avoided. But the other quite creative answer to this question is that. Take the sharp objects from one of the chairs. The And then they use them, took Atoff the objects from the other chair. And you know what objects I'm talking about?”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is one of the ways to answer this question. If you got to a tricky situation that probably earlier you made a certain mistake.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not this exact dilemma. I think this is a riddle that people have to face in Russian prisons. Metaphorically It's describing all the situations where you presented a choice. Into suboptimal options. When you're running a big business or when you're running a large country, it is similar, you sometimes face this dilemma. What are you going to do? This very horrible thing, or this also very horrible thing. So, I think the right answer to this riddle is. Not to do any of these things. Reframe the question. Design a solution that turns Disadvantage in the advantage and then use it. Cope with the other side of the problem Do you know the answer to that”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And again, I'm now talking about Bitcoin, but it relates to cryptocurrencies in general. So I have been able to fund my lifestyle, so to say, from my Bitcoin investment. Some people think if I'm able to rent nice locations or Fly private is because I somehow extract money from Telegram. But like I said, Telegram is a money losing operation for me personally. Bitcoin is something that allowed me to. Stay afloat. And I believe it will come to a point when Bitcoin is worth $1 million. Just look at the trends. The governments keep printing money like no tomorrow. Nobody sprinting Bitcoin Predictable inflation, and then it stops at a certain point. Bitcoin is here to stay. All the fiat currencies remains to be seen.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was a big believer in Bitcoins since more or less the start of it I got to buy my first few thousand of Bitcoin and 2013. And I didn't care much. I think I bought at the local maximum. It's something like $700 per Bitcoin. And I just threw a couple of millions there. And other people after Bitcoin later next year went down somewhere close to three hundred two hundred. Started to express. Sympathy to me say, Oh, you're poor fellow, you made this horrible mistake investing in this new thing, but Don't feel bad about it We still have some respect for you. My response to them was, I don't care. I'm not going to sell it. I believe in this thing. I think this is the way money should work. Nobody can confiscate your Bitcoin from you. Nobody can censor you Political reasons. This Ultimate Means of exchange.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a real market, it's just something that he did in a few months. And last year, when we launched the Many new features for the mini apps on Telegram and the payment options for them and the other manipulation options. Same guy earned twelve million dollars From Minea apps. And then several people anecdotally, I earned $10 million, earned $3 million. Just a matter of months. Single-handedly, sometimes they would have a team of two, three people. So, whenever I hear stories from people who, We were able to build businesses on top of Telegram, this makes me incredibly proud.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't expect it, by the way. We just had a lot of fun launching these things, and then we realized that one of the first collections we issued, we sold each piece at something like Five dollars Minimum price of any items in these collections currently is something like ten thousand dollars. And it keeps going up. I was quite surprised with the reception, I realized when you are trying to monetize social media platform in a way that is consistent with your values, you're forced to find ways that benefit your users, not exploit them. People love this gifts. People love the fact that they can congratulate a person close to them with something valuable and at the same time something beautiful. Also, some people make a business out of it, which is funny. They resell these gifts. We recently met a guy who earned several million dollars.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are not based on any sophisticated technology. So, what we did with Snoop's gifts. I think represents an example of the Beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and at the same time very accurate in terms of references to this specific artist's biography, mixture between art and technology, which I think is quite rare. I'm quite proud of it. I think it's a new trend, a new phenomenon. It's only half a year old. So let's see where it goes. We're going to select our next. Influenc Artists to be part of it”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And each of this gives a scalable because it's vector based. It references certain points and snoops. Greater biography, and each of them has countless different versions. We had to create over fifty distinctive versions of each. And then each individual piece is unique because it also has unique background, unique icon, and the background. It's something that we reinvented because we didn't like the old school NFTs. First of all, they were not relevant socially because, okay, you have an NFT. Where do you demonstrate it? A Tilgram gift is there next to your name. It's part of your digital identity on Telegram. And then you can create collections of gifts and show it off on your profile page. But the other thing that we wanted to reinvent is the aesthetic part of it. Most NFTs are just ugly.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a big fan of Snoop, and that's why when they reach out, suggest to do something together. So let's launch some Snoop related gifts. And it was really fun. We managed to sell twelve million worth of gifts within thirty minutes.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tokenized usernames, pilgrim accounts are all based on dawn and its smart contracts. It's the only way for third party developers and creators. To withdraw the funds that they earn through our revenue sharing programs. For example, with channel owners, we do a 50-50 split of ad revenues. Also, the only way to transact on Telegram, for example, if you want to buy ads on Telegram, you should use Ton. The new things we launch, for example, let's say. Gifts that we mentioned earlier, which you can define as a Reinvented socially relevant NFT integrated into a billion user ecosystem but at the same time available on chain, transferable which you can own directly also based on TON. Incredibly fast growing space, we only launched them half a year ago. Now is a result of this Telegram gift, Ton has become”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he thought for a few days and said, Yes, it's possible, but it's not easy. And we started building it. We ended up succeeding in developing that technology, but we couldn't really release it. The SEC, the Securities and Exchanges Commission in the United States, was unhappy with the way. The fundraise for Dawn was conducted. So we had to abandon the project and The open source community took over. Luckily, because we constantly conducted those contests for third-party developers, there was a thriving community around Tony. Which now stood for the open network, as opposed to its prior name Telegram Open Network. And so this project Eventually launched. Without our direct involvement. It's thriving now because everything we do, like I said, this blockchain-based.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a blockchain technology that we initially developed. And we started to develop it because we needed a blockchain platform to be integrated deeply into Telegram, because we believe in blockchain. We think it's one of the technologies that enabled freedom. But at the time, if you look at Bitcoin, if you look at Ethereum, they were not scalable enough to cope with the load that our hundreds of millions of users will create. They would just become congested. And I asked my brother Can we create a blockchain platform that would be inherently scalable so that no matter how many users or transactions there are, it would split into smaller pieces, which we call shard chains, and would still process all transactions.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More users will have, the more successful and relevant Tobrim becomes, we need third-party developers. I think at this point, Telegram gives developers by far the most powerful tools to create.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We enabled them to receive Payments from the users In app purchase mechanism provided by Apple and Google, which I think was the first attempt of this kind. Allow that both on iOS and Android on a big platform so that third party developers of MiniApps which are basically websites so deeply integrated into Telegram that you can't tell whether they're standalone or they're part of their overall experience And by providing this payment option. We were able to extract. Commission From this transactions, but it's a very low commission presently, it's 5% We aren't greedy here. We want people to Succeed in building these tools for our users, we understand that Bring us us users.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Course, because we would never use, for example, your personal messaging data or your contact data or your metadata, reactivity data to target ads. Sad that it became synonymous with the Internet industry. This kind of exploitation, but we are happy with the fact that we managed to make Tilgram profitable despite that Are also experimenting a lot with blockchain based technologies. Really, the first app to allow people to directly own their username of their digital identities using smart contracts and NFTs, removing children from the picture. So for example, Telegram cannot confiscate your username from you. It's impossible. We do a lot of things related to the ecosystem of Selgram. We have a thriving mini-app platform millions of mini-app developers launching their own bots and applications.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, you keep improving the existing features and adding new ones. And every time when you add a new feature, you don't want to clutter the app. So, in a way, they are not in your way, they're invisible. Not an easy thing to do, and most of the features maybe are not even known to the majority of our users, but when you need them they're there. So premium is one source of our revenue. We also have ads but they're contacts based Not targeted. Of course, we leave probably. 80% of value. The table because we are not ready to engage in all these practices exporting personal data.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For that, we had to innovate a lot. We included over 50 different features into the premium package. And then, how do you make an app that is already more powerful than any other messaging app on the market? Even more useful so that people would be ready to pay for this. Extra there wasn't easy. That took a lot of eff”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I also didn't want to sell telegrams. So, how do you reach a point when you're profitable without sacrificing your values? One of the ideas we explored was a subscription model, but only for certain additional features. We want to keep all the existing features free and just add. Business related tools or tools for advanced users that they would have to pay for, say four or five dollars a month. It was quite unprecedented at the time. It wasn't considered a viable option for messaging apps to do that. We launched the premium subscriptions for Telegram in And now we have over 15 million paid subscribers. Some very significant recurring revenue. Receive more than half a billion dollars from premium subscriptions alone this year and is growing fast.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had to innovate a lot in order to reach a point where we are profitable. Without having to resort to Dubious business activities involving, exploiting personal data of users Something that most of our competitors do. Money has never been the primary goal at least not for me. When I sold Remaining share of my first company. Had to do it below market price because. I didn't leave Russia completely without any pressures, you know. I reinvested the vast majority of everything. Telegram. Tilgram is an operation that is losing money for me personally. I never I didn't extract more from Telegram than I invested in it. I never sold a single share.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and one of the necessary character features to enable that is to be ready, to be unpleasant. You have to be ready to insult some people. If they work, it's inferior. You have to be ready to fire them without remorse. So, in order to be an efficient, a great entrepreneur and in which the world of innovations. Have to do unpleasant things. Most people will shy away from it. A certain sense, entrepreneurs sacrifice their peace of mind. In order Contribute to the world around them. And Elen is a great example of that.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being non agreeable. Actually, it's one of the main traits of a successful entrepreneur. Not agreeing with things. And every time somebody like Elon, but there is no somebody like Helen, it's just Elon, think at least from the entrepreneurs I know, and I personally interacted with his unique in the sense that he keeps launching new things, running them in parallel. He doesn't seem to be stretched too thin. Some people think he is, but. He manages to still demonstrate All or most of his endeavors So again, you can criticize Zealand for being emotional, but would he be the same person without this? I doubt that”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is derived from the fact that he cares about issues deeply. And he's willing to start as many wars and as many fights as it takes to change the world in the direction that He thinks is right. He also seems to be able to extract motivation from this worsen personal conflicts Which is, again, not something to be underestimated. A certain point in life of a successful entrepreneur, the question of motivation starts to be the primary question. If we are talking about the Richest person in the world and the most famous entrepreneur in the world. Have to wonder how he motivates himself. And if X debating certain issues. Becoming personal with other CEOs, criticizing them. If these activities help Elen, To innovate Start new projects. He should be doing more of it. There's nothing wrong in.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all I don't think there is such a thing as. And negative personal trade in most cases, our bad trades and our good trades are the same trade or at least have the same source. Of course, there are some extreme examples, but I'd say 99% of people, if you analyze the character, their bravery can be seen in recklessness in other situations. Depending on circumstances. You would see exactly the same personality trait It will be either a good thing or a bad thing. Because humanity is perfect as a whole. And each of us is different for a reason. We have evolved to be different. Complement each other's abilities so that together we are invincible. And even if you Complicated as Zeeland. I believe that certain traits that Ilan demonstrates. That people criticize about him. Also the sources of his strength For example his emotionality.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Receive as much information as possible because their relatives, their friends, their We're getting affected us still getting affected. Want to understand what was going on. At that moment, I realized people are smart. People get it. People can see through it. If you ask most people in any of these countries, do you agree that? Access to Telegram should be restricted for whatever reason they would say no.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I didn't want Telegram to be used as a tool for war. And I said, and I posted it publicly, I suggested maybe we should just Suspend the activity of all politics related channels in both countries for the time of the war. Maybe we shouldn't have channels in these two countries Then interestingly, people from both countries. Revolted against this They told me both people in Ukraine and in Russia that I don't get to babysit them and decide for them. What sources of information that they have to be granted access to? They are grown-ups that can make these decisions for themselves. They understand that there is a lot of propaganda. They learn to see through this propaganda. They learn to be able to tell truth from lie. And in this time of war it was particularly valuable for them.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think people are smart. Every time I meet somebody from one of these countries you mention in real life people recognize me in the street, see here in Dubai. Come Seem incredibly grateful and understanding. The propaganda in each of these countries Would tell them a number of things, but they learned to discount it Why they're so happy that Tilgrim exists is because. The way they can. Understand the world around them is to receive conflicting, mutually exclusive viewpoints from sources that hate each other. and try to understand what really is true because there's no such thing as an unbiased source of information. Ukraine story in 2022 I instantly realized Telegram is going to be used to spread propaganda by both sides.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And all this schizophrenia is something that we had to deal with for some time. Because it's a very easy way to attack you. At some point, you don't understand where it is coming from. Is this DAO competitors? We must give credit to our competitors if it's their invention to launch these kind of rumors because Certain point they must have realized they can't compete. Technolog The product side, so they must do something like this, or it's just governments launching these rumors, trying to discredit a platform, trying to scare their citizens away from it. Because they understand that power and grip their own countries in danger. As long as they allow a pro freedom platform to operate.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When the forces in power will say that you must be working with some foreign government that they don't like. Inevitably they would say that oh, if you're protecting these voices, it's not right. They love you when you're protecting the freedom of speech. In a country that is far from them, or better yet in a country that is their geopolitical rival, they praise you for that, then they Have this bipolar attitude. When you do the same in their own country. And they say, no, no, no, no, no. We loved you for protecting freedom of speech, but not here. No, they might be backyard. Don't need it here. We're alright. We have free press Then you find yourself in this weird spot, and Ukrainians say you work for the Russians, the Russians say you work for the Ukrainians.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The agents of this other country that wants to take over. That's why, dear citizens, forget about your freedoms. Now increasingly you see similar attempts in free countries. The initial instinct from, say, President Macron's team when they're confronted with some footage. Example, the footage of his wife slapping him. Would be to say it's all Russian Imagery something that is Inaccurate. Something that is misinformation or interference. And then when they are confronted with more information, they have to refine the narrative. So Find yourself in a situation that you're running this platform. Telegram, and then you protect the freedom to express of. Ideas that don't go in line with the mainstream narrative Often find yourself This crossfire”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Protecting freedom of speech Not a way to make it over Because you would inevitably find yourself in a situation where You would be protecting the freedom of the opposition to the current government in any country. Express themselves. And then The initial reaction Basic instinctive reaction of any Government would be to say, or our position. Shouldn't be trusted and allowed to express themselves because they're Actually, are agents of some foreign Rival, a geopolitical force that wants to destroy our country. This is something that every authoritarian regime in history used. You take Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, Maoist China did. Always use the same trick that say we need to limit your freedom of speech People who are masquerading as a position are actually.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“the Americans perhaps other people from Eastern Europe like Ukrainians and Southeast Asians they're among the first people to start using any new edition that we launch They're incredibly hungry for innovation.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a norm now Through strict voices. Don't go in line with the mainstream narrative. That's sad because one of the things that makes our life interesting is this abundance. Of different viewpoints, of different people. We get to experience. Limit the freedom of people, you inevitably decelerate economic growth, level of happiness, the way people can contribute to the society, the way people can express themselves. I personally think it will be a huge mistake. To ban a tool like Telegram Any country, particularly large countries such as Russia, because the Russian people are incredibly talented and resilient people. They are among the first to start utilizing some of this recent innovations that Telegram implements. Are the early adopters. I say them.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Users from existing messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram to their own homegrown tool. Which would, of course, be fully transparent to the government and wouldn't allow voices independent from the government to express themselves. It's certainly an alarming trend We see these attempts in countries that are not famous for Protecting freedom of speech, but also increasingly in countries that Have been known to protect freedoms. And this creates this. Vicious circle Because in a way, European countries trying to fight freedom of speech. Pretext that sound legitimate, such as combating misinformation or election interference, they create precedents and they legitimize Restrictions to freedom of speech, which then in turn be used. Authoritarian regimes. They would say in places like China or Iran or Not doing anything different.”
2025-10-01 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source