#482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 283 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep482-sc
See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.
Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/pavel-durov-transcript
CONTACT LEX:
Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey
AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama
Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring
Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact
EPISODE LINKS:
Pavel's Telegram: https://t.me/durov
Pavel's X: https://x.com/durov
Telegram: https://telegram.org/
Telegram Contests: https://contest.com/
SPONSORS:
To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts:
Miro: Online collaborative whiteboard platform.
Go to https://miro.com/
UPLIFT Desk: Standing desks and office ergonomics.
Go to https://upliftdesk.com/lex
Fin: AI agent for customer service.
Go to https://fin.ai/lex
LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix.
Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex
Shopify: Sell stuff online.
Go to https://shopify.com/lex
OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(02:46) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(11:29) - Philosophy of freedom
(14:37) - No alcohol
(22:42) - No phone
(28:38) - Discipline
(49:50) - Telegram: Lean philosophy, privacy, and geopolitics
(1:05:12) - Arrest in France
(1:21:23) - Romanian elections
(1:32:18) - Power and corruption
(1:41:50) - Intense education
(1:53:51) - Nikolai Durov
(1:58:19) - Programming and video games
(2:02:33) - VK origins & engineering
(2:19:46) - Hiring a great team
(2:29:02) - Telegram engineering & design
(2:48:04) - Encryption
(2:53:01) - Open source
(2:57:48) - Edward Snowden
(3:00:20) - Intelligence agencies
(3:01:32) - Iran and Russia government pressure
(3:04:41) - Apple
(3:11:38) - Poisoning
(3:43:53) - Money
(3:52:45) - TON
(4:02:35) - Bitcoin
(4:05:34) - Two chairs dilemma
(4:12:14) - Children
(4:23:24) - Father
(4:27:55) - Quantum immortality
(4:34:27) - Kafka
PODCAST LINKS:
- Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
- Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
- RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
- Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
- Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Pavel Dirov, founder and CEO of Telegram, a messaging platform |
| 0:07.2 | actively used by over one billion people. Pavel has spent his life fighting for freedom of speech, |
| 0:14.8 | building tools that protect human communication from surveillance and censorship. For this, |
| 0:20.8 | he has faced pressure from some of the |
| 0:23.0 | most powerful governments and organizations on Earth. In the face of this immense pressure, |
| 0:28.6 | he has always held his ground, continuously fighting to protect user privacy and the freedom |
| 0:33.5 | of all of us humans to communicate with each other. I got the chance to spend a few weeks with him and can definitively say that he's one of the |
| 0:42.3 | most principled and fearless humans I've ever met. |
| 0:46.3 | Plus, when I posted that I'm hanging out with Pavel, a lot of people, fans of his, wrote to me |
| 0:53.3 | asking if he does, in fact, privately |
| 0:55.6 | live the disciplined, ascetic life he's known for. |
| 0:59.7 | No alcohol, stoic mindset, strict diet and exercise, including a crazy amount of daily |
| 1:06.8 | pull-ups and push-ups, no phone except to occasionally test telegram features, and so on. |
| 1:12.1 | Yes, he is 100% that guy, which made the experience of hanging out with him really inspiring |
| 1:18.7 | to me. I'm grateful for it, and I'm grateful to now be able to call him a friend. |
| 1:24.3 | This podcast conversation is in parts philosophical about freedom, life, human nature, and the |
| 1:30.2 | nature of government bureaucracies. And it is also in parts super technical, because to me, |
| 1:36.8 | it is fascinating that Telegram has a relatively small engineering team and yet is able to |
| 1:42.1 | basically out-innovate all of its competitors with an insane |
| 1:46.8 | rate of introducing new, unique features. Just like the meme of the Simpsons did it first, |
| 1:54.4 | when you consider all the features we know and love in our communication apps, in almost every case, |
| 2:00.4 | Telegram did it first. So we discuss it all, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lex Fridman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Lex Fridman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.