Pavel Durov

And he pretty fast got so advanced in maths that by the age of six, he could already read really sophisticated books on astronomy.

Sometimes when he did it in public places like buses or metro, my mom was criticized by people who were witnessing it.

They would tell her, why are you mocking your own kid with this serious book?

It's obvious the kid can't understand everything there.

It's too complicated.

Even we don't understand anything there.

There's some formulas.

And he was already...

sucking in this knowledge.

He just has this thirst for information.

So he was the source of all kind of great facts, useful things, inspiring things.

He taught me pretty much everything I know.

At the same time, he's incredibly modest.

And kind.

And this is something I think a lot of people that think they're smart but not generally intelligent lack.

More often than not, people who are truly intelligent, they're also kind and compassionate.

Definitely.

Part of it is his natural modesty.

I tried to avoid it as well, but at a certain point I realized that me being too private, too secretive becomes a liability because it creates this void, this emptiness that people and organizations that don't like Telegram very much are willing to fill with inaccurate information and they're willing to spread the narratives about Telegram.

which can result in strange situations, some of which we discussed earlier.