Quotes from Pavel Durov

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'm a big believer in Europe.

Me myself, I'm not a big fan of the idea of countries.

To put it simply, it doesn't matter how many other messaging apps are out there if all of them suck.

I consider myself a legal citizen of the world.

I'm out of Russia and have no plans to go back.

I believe that at some point we should come up with a business model that would make us sustainable.

When I turned 17, I created a website for the students at my University. It enabled students to share lectures and discuss exams, and became popular very quickly.

Armed police at my apartment doors in 2011 was scary, but the sudden - and not exactly legal - takeover of 48 per cent of VKontakte, that coincided with a fabricated case against myself in April 2013, was more frightening.

Any government that likes to call themselves democratic should welcome Snowden and allow him to live in their country.

I believe the role of the government is too big. Society must be more decentralized.

Maybe we shouldn't be too dependent on politicians trying to make us believe that we are safe only because of their actions.

I'm in a situation where I can determine my own future.

I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not afraid to die, if I have to.

A lot of people in the western world don't realize how much taxes limit their options. You can end up paying almost half your income in taxes, which basically means you're working for the government for 180 days a year. I think I can find better ways to use the money I make for the benefit of society.

If you get rid of emotion for a minute and think about the threat of terrorism statistically, it's not even there. The probability that you will slip on a wet floor in your bathroom and die is a thousand times higher than the probability of you dying as a result of terrorism.

Unless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day, you should delete WhatsApp from your phone.

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.

For WhatsApp to become a privacy-oriented service, it has to risk losing entire markets and clashing with authorities in their home country.

WhatsApp deliberately obfuscates their apps' binaries to make sure no one is able to study them thoroughly.

Looking back, there hasn't been a single day in WhatsApp's 10 year journey when this service was secure.

WhatsApp doesn't only fail to protect your WhatsApp messages - this app is being consistently used as a Trojan horse to spy on your non-WhatsApp photos and messages.

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.

Facebook has long been part of surveillance programs, long before it acquired WhatsApp.