Durov's VK Defiance

A story about how Pavel Durov, founder of VK (Russian Facebook), stood up to the Russian government and lost his company after refusing to share user data.

"Pavel built VK, the Facebook of Russia - it was even more impressive than Zuck. He actually beat Facebook, the one place Facebook couldn't dominate was Russia. Even Zuck said in an interview with Sam Altman, 'The only ones we could never beat were the Russians.'

One day the Russian government approaches Pavel and says 'We need some information.' He asks what they need to know, and they say 'There's been some users saying anti-government things. Give us some names and we'll make sure they get quiet.'

Pavel not only doesn't comply, he flips the bird. He goes and posts on VK the government's secret request letter telling him what they needed. He said 'They're asking for your data, I'll never do it' and posted a picture of a dog wearing a hoodie as his official response.

Immediately he's in trouble. They raid his apartment, he loses the company, has to flee the country, never allowed back in Russia. It costs him basically everything - his entire life gets completely uprooted. He did get $300 million because he sold it on the way out to someone who would comply. At the end of all this he says 'I would do it all again without hesitation.'"