Pavel Durov

We should find the right balance between chaos and order, between self-restriction and freedom for creativity.

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 typing his books and articles in an old-school typewriter back in the late 80s, early 90s.

he was relentless the example he said to myself and my brother was priceless some people make this mistake of thinking that you 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

So observing our father was a big lesson by itself.

It 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, but she would sometimes

tried to test the patience of my father.

And it's a trait rooted in our biology.

There's an evolutionary explanation for that.

Women sometimes tend to do that.

And he demonstrated incredible 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, it won't land.

It's bound to fail.

So you lead by example.

And there are other numerous lessons.