Pavel Durov
Our growth relies solely on our users suggesting to their friends to download and use Telegram.
The best legislative initiative - is the absence of one.
Not everybody's actions are based on ideas. Some people's actions are based on profit.
The political solutions proposed against encryption are not going to work against terrorism.
I have a clean conscience and ideals that I am willing to defend.
I'm out of Russia and have no plans to go back.
There's always a risk that your iPhone can be stolen, and the people who stole it can use the data, your private photos, etc. to blackmail you.
We are not willing to compromise our values in order to increase our market share.
We had a simple choice: Either betray our values or keep our values and leave Russia to try to do something new.
In my days in Russia, I visited some very rich guys. I visited big ships, private airplanes, houses - and I know for sure I don't want this for myself.
I consider myself a legal citizen of the world.
If you have WhatsApp and your phone goes down, you don't have access to your messages. You can't send documents and it's not private.
Unless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day, you should delete WhatsApp from your phone.
The global threat of 'Big Brother' can actually be conquered purely by technology.
I think the big difference between most countries and the U.S., is that governments are more straightforward now about their intentions to gather information on private communications.
The U.S. can use its control over the dollar and the global financial system to shut down any bank or bank account in the world. It can use its control over Apple and Google to remove apps from the App Store and Google Play.
Every time WhatsApp has to fix a critical vulnerability in their app, a new one seems to appear in its place.
WhatsApp deliberately obfuscates their apps' binaries to make sure no one is able to study them thoroughly.
WhatsApp has a consistent history - from zero encryption at its inception to a succession of security issues strangely suitable for surveillance purposes.
Looking back, there hasn't been a single day in WhatsApp's 10 year journey when this service was secure.
Telegram is heavily encrypted and privacy-oriented, but we're no friends of terrorists - in fact, every month we block thousands of ISIS-related public channels.
Despite this ever-increasing evidence of WhatsApp being a honeypot for people that still trust Facebook in 2019, it might also be the case that WhatsApp just accidentally implements critical security vulnerabilities across all their apps every few months.
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.
Compromises lead you nowhere. You can't be happy doing something you don't believe in.
I realized I don't have a safe means of communications. That's how Telegram started.
Few people outside the Telegram fan community realize that most of the new features in messaging appear on Telegram first, and are then carbon-copied by WhatsApp down to the tiniest details.
One thing Telegram does is make mass surveillance impossible.
When you start giving interviews like the CEO of an established company, it's just wrong.
I believe the role of the government is too big. Society must be more decentralized.