The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was also _the original creator_ of VK. Some say “he's the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia”, an unfair comparison if you'd ask me. While both Pavel and Mark have built successful social platforms, that's where the similarities ends.
Because he refused to comply with government demands to identify activists using VK, Durov was personally ousted from the company (and self-exiled from Russia altogether).
While refreshing my Durov trivia, I found he published a text a couple days ago, and this following passage just had a good vibe;
“I focused on what I enjoyed most – creating social platforms that (hopefully) bring good to humanity. I spent most of my personal funds on Telegram for people to enjoy a free service that strives for perfection.”[1]
