This article was taken from the March 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

Four days after Facebook announced its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp on February 19 last year, an unadvertised six-month-old free messaging app called Telegram was downloaded 4.95 million times. WhatsApp, to be fair, had experienced a four-hour outage that weekend, but even after service resumed, its little-known competitor continued to grow like wildfire -- reportedly becoming the top free App Store download in 46 countries from Argentina to Austria, a de facto alternative for anyone concerned about Facebook's new ownership of the world's most popular messaging app. By March 24, Telegram was reporting 35 million monthly users and 15 million daily actives; and on December 8, it said it was delivering more than a billion daily messages for what were now 50 million active users, still growing at around a million a week.

At first glance, the newcomer is not radically different from


WhatsApp -- which, at Facebook's acquisition, seemed unassailable in its viral growth, with 450 million active monthly users and rising at around a million a day. Telegram, too, offers individual and group messaging, and lets you and your contacts share photos, videos and other files; and like

WhatsApp, has neither advertising nor clutter to detract from the simple user experience. But Telegram's advocates were quick to promote some fundamental differences: unlike a Facebook-owned product, Telegram was, as its home page declares, about "taking back our right to privacy", built around hardcore encryption. Second, unlike subscription-funded

Read next To get rich in crypto you just need an idea, and a coin To get rich in crypto you just need an idea, and a coin

WhatsApp, it was robustly anticommercial, with a promise of "no ads, no subscription fees, forever". And third, rather than having a profit-seeking corporate parent, it was run and funded by an outspoken and now exiled Russian opponent of Vladimir Putin's regime, Pavel Durov, who had built and lost control of the country's biggest social network, VKontakte (VK).

Bloomberg News once called Durov "the Zuckerberg of Russia"; in April 2014, after posting on his VKontakte wall that he had been "fired" and the network placed under "the complete control" of Putin allies Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov, he promptly left his homeland to begin a continuing period of multi-country exile. His dismissal occurred five days after he publicly refused an order to give the security services access to information about Ukrainian protestors using the network, and to block the page of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.


Durov, 30, has just reached London from San Francisco, before heading for Helsinki. It has been a restless few months: WIRED last met him in Paris in June, where he and his brother Nikolai, 34, had recently arrived from central Europe. At the time, he was uncertain of his next steps beyond a certainty that returning to Russia would be a high-risk option. As he had posted on Facebook itself a few weeks earlier, he and his team of 12 engineers (led by Nikolai, a multi-time gold-medal winner at the International Mathematical Olympiad) were in search of "a country that will allow us to develop our projects with privacy and freedom of speech in mind. To give you an idea of our preferences," he wrote, "we dislike bureaucracy, police states, big governments, wars, socialism and excessive regulation. We like freedoms, strong judicial systems, small governments, free markets, neutrality and civil rights."

Durov, dressed in black, remains homeless -- his base, he says, is "everywhere -- I feel comfortable in San Francisco, London, Berlin. I don't want to be dependent on any place or government." He can't see himself moving back to Russia. "The rules of the game are unclear in Russia," he says quietly as we walk on Hampstead Heath -- and in his case, that means uncertainty about his personal safety. "I'm not afraid of anything," he says. "I'm not afraid to die, if I have to. There was this Greek philosopher who said that death has nothing to do with you, because either you exist or death exists. In my past, it looked like I could get into trouble in Russia -- but I was not afraid then, and I'm not afraid now. Fear paralyses you and doesn't let you go forward."

Still, didn't he leave last April because he felt threatened? "You could call it a business decision," he says with a smile. "This was the point at which I was fired from my own company.

Read next From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower From imitation to innovation: How China became a tech superpower

Telegram was the only project I was involved with, and


Telegram is a global project. It made perfect sense to operate it outside Russia." Still, he knew he had made powerful enemies. "Some people advised me to leave," he says. "I could have stayed, made some compromises on the way, maybe regained control of the company. But that was not something I wanted to do. Compromises lead you nowhere. You can't be happy doing something you don't believe in."

He was simply a tech guy who had unwittingly waded into politics. "Obviously I do have political views -- I'm a believer in the free-market economy; I also believe that without competition and respect for human rights there will be no progress because nobody will feel safe and free. But what I've been trying to do is create value for our users and be honest with them. I chose to try to do the right thing. It doesn't make sense to keep going forward without strong principles. I don't think money is the thing that can make you go forward -- it's ideas that you believe in."

With Telegram, Durov has a renewed sense of mission. "We're trying to create a new type of IT company, one that never focuses on maximising profits, but instead provides value to society," he says. "We are raising the bar of human communication."

And that means turning down the constant offers of VC funding that he receives, because "it is imperative for this goal that we remain independent". Instead, he is funding the project personally: he announced last January that he had sold his 12 per cent in VKontakte, at a time when the network was reportedly valued at $3bn (£1.9bn) to $4bn.

Read next Didi Chuxing took on Uber and won. Now it's taking on the world Didi Chuxing took on Uber and won. Now it's taking on the world

There is, he says, a wider purpose behind Telegram: "Secure messaging should be free for everyone. Displaying ads alongside your private communication seems out of place, even immoral." Besides, other messaging apps on the market are not, he says, up to par. "We're aiming to set a higher standard for messaging technologies, to raise the bar of communication in terms of speed, security and versatility."

He has long sparred with WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum, originally from Ukraine. When Telegram launched in August 2013, Koum was quoted in a Russian magazine as accusing him of plagiarism: "Pavel Durov only knows how to copy great products like Facebook and WhatsApp," Koum was quoted as saying. Last November, Durov responded in a post on Medium titled "How To Predict WhatsApp Features": "A great thing about building

Telegram is that you can force bigger apps to improve their products, and also predict their actions," he wrote, before listing features he suggested the incumbent had copied from his more innovative app. "They still didn't catch up with us."

Now he is keen to specify the differences -- not least the open-source security protocol, MTProto, created by Nikolai. "Telegram is unique in three regards: security, speed and cross-device sync," he says in an email. "It is the only mass-market messenger that is open-source. You and I don't have to trust Telegram that it is secure -- the apps are verifiable." The company offers a $300,000 bounty, so far unpaid, to anyone who can hack its encryption.

Speed is a big focus. "According to benchmarks,

Read next How to inspire the next generation of tech innovators How to inspire the next generation of tech innovators

Telegram is the fastest messenger in terms of delivery speed," Durov says. "And like other apps, it can seamlessly sync your message history across several devices, including laptops and tablets. Combined with group chats and the ability to share files of any type, this brings many small teams and businesses to

Telegram."

What of user privacy? "Since the day we launched we have disclosed exactly zero bytes of private data to governments and third-parties," he says. "How is this possible? Firstly, end-to-end encryption, self-destructing messages and self-destructing user accounts allow us to know as little sensitive info about our users as possible. Secondly, Telegram is spread legally and physically across several jurisdictions, which allows it to avoid being an easy target for data requests and regulators. Thirdly, we don't do deals with governments that threaten to block us. We are not here for market share and revenues anyway, so we can ignore these threats." Will he continue to bankroll the business -- or does he see revenue opportunities? "We will become financially sustainable at some point," he says. "It will most likely involve third-party paid apps built on the Telegram platform."

At VKontakte, Durov earned a reputation as an unconventional CEO. In December 2011, when the Kremlin demanded that he block the pages of opposition politicians, he responded by tweeting a photo of a dog wearing a hoodie. The following May, he prompted fury by tweeting on Russia's Victory Day that "67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler's right to punish the population of the Soviet Union". A short time later, he and colleagues threw 5,000-rouble notes out of their Moscow office window, prompting fights in the street.

Was his reputation for controversy justified? "Unlike

Read next Inside the Amish town that builds U2, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift's live shows Inside the Amish town that builds U2, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift's live shows

Telegram, VK had shareholders and advertisers, and was dependent on bureaucrats from a specific jurisdiction," he reflects. "Every time their interests clashed with the interests of our users, I stood by the users. This may have created controversies, but I am proud we have lasted for seven years that way."

And his lack of respect for the Kremlin? "I regard most big governments as outdated centralised structures, with a lot of legacy from medieval times. The difference between the Kremlin, the White House and the Palace of Westminster lies mostly in their PR.

In Russia I followed my common sense and the country's constitution. That's why I refused to block opposition communities and that's why I declined to hand over Ukrainian users' private data during the protests."


Didn't that cost him control of the company? "Yes, but power and money mean nothing if you betray what you stand for. If you stick to your principles, you can rebuild what you once had. "I did make mistakes while building VK -- like taking outside investment, or depending on a single jurisdiction. I will not make these mistakes again."

And his August 2013 offer of a job to Edward Snowden -- was that genuine? "I will always be grateful to Edward," he says. "In a way, he is the reason why Telegram exists. He showed that the surveillance problems I was experiencing were not specific to one country."

For now, Durov seems contented living an itinerant life, booking rooms on Airbnb for each destination. But what would he advise those wanting to follow an independent path in Russia today? "My advice would work for any country -- don't be bound by the opinions of others," he replies. "The majority is almost certainly wrong. If you can, try contributing to the global market, not the local one. If you face excessive regulation or over-taxation, move to another country."