Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Usually billionaires always want to highlight their wealth so that everyone knows they are very rich. However, this was not done by Pavel Durov.
Although Forbes recorded as having assets of US$ 15.5 billion or Rp. 253 trillion, his lifestyle is actually quite simple and he doesn't want to look rich. In fact, he decided he didn't want to chase the world. What's the story?
Russian “Mark Zuckerberg”.
Please note, Pavel Durov is a man from Russia born October 10, 1984. He became famous and rich thanks to founding VKontakte (VK) in 2006. VK is a social media in Russia that is similar to Facebook: both can share messages.
In Durov's hands, VK grew rapidly. It didn't take long for social media to successfully replace Facebook as the most popular social media in Russia. The company's valuation also grew to US$ 3 billion. He was also nicknamed Russia's “Mark Zuckerberg”.
However, VK's rapid growth occurred in Russia, which strictly controls citizens' freedom of expression. As a result, VK is often the target of the Russian government's “anger”. His office was also raided by Russian police.
Durov has also been the target of criminalization several times. Initially he continued to fight, but the peak occurred in 2014. Quote Yahoo Newsat that time Durov was forced by Russian intelligence agents to provide data on VK users in Ukraine who were protesting against the pro-Russian President of Ukraine.
Durov rejected this request outright. However, after that he had to be expelled from his homeland, including losing VK.
“After that, I was fired from the company I founded. And to fight back, I left Russia. I lost my company and my home,” he said.
Durov then settled in the United States and is known to have immediately planned the creation of new social media. Later, this plan gave birth to a message sharing application called Telegram.
Forbes noted that Telegram then grew very rapidly. This can happen because Telegram can better maintain user data security. The success of Telegram, which in 2021 became the most popular application, has made Durov's name increasingly popular.
Until 2024, Durov is recorded as having assets of US$ 1.5 billion or IDR 253 trillion. However, all this did not make Durov complacent.
The simple Life
Quote South China Morning Post, Durov is known to lead an ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle makes him choose not to indulge in worldly pleasures and focus more on achieving spiritual goals. Usually, adherents of this lifestyle are religious people who often meditate and isolate themselves from the hustle and bustle of the world.
Moving on from here, he has kept away all kinds of things that are harmful to health and physical well-being. He refuses alcohol, nicotine, drugs, caffeine, fast food, sugar, including watching television. It is also reported that he likes to meditate as a means of detox.
Another practice of this step is also seen in clothing habits. Everyday she doesn't want to bother thinking about clothes. He only wore a plain black t-shirt. His clothing style follows Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, who often wears plain t-shirts.
Even the latest news is that he is not proud of using a cheap cellphone.
In an upload on his official Telegram account a few days ago, he initially said that his cellphone, which was his main device for work, had just been damaged due to the hot weather in Dubai. From here, people then mistakenly focus on their cellphone, the Samsung Galaxy A52, which costs IDR 5 million and is out of date. From here people see that Durov's lifestyle is anti-mainstream. Even though he can buy an expensive cellphone with hundreds of trillions of rupiah, he ends up using a cheap cellphone.
Therefore, learn from Durov: live simply even if you have an abundance of money.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
Next Article
Arab billionaire is afraid of the sin of having lots of wealth, now chooses to live in poverty
(mfa/sef)