Quote · Lex Fridman Podcast
#482 – Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature
Where this was said
Programming and video games
At 1:56:50 · chapter starts 1:54:59
The warmth with which Durov describes his brother is one of the emotional peaks of the conversation. Nikolai started reading at three, was reading advanced astronomy books on public buses at six to the bewilderment of onlookers, and went on to win gold at the International Mathematics Olympiad three times and the ICPC world programming championship twice, while earning two PhDs in mathematics [1] — Lex Fridman "Nikolai Durov: 3 IMO gold medals, 2 ICPC titles: Pavel Durov's brother Nikolai won 3 gold medals at the International Mathematics Olympiad …" 1:54:24 . Growing up, they shared a bedroom, and Pavel would ply Nikolai with endless questions — about dinosaurs, galaxies, black holes, Neanderthals — mining his brother as a living encyclopedia before the internet existed. Pavel credits Nikolai with teaching him essentially everything he knows technically and intellectually. He also observes that Nikolai, despite his extraordinary gifts, is remarkably modest and kind — and uses this as evidence for a broader claim: that genuine intelligence and genuine kindness tend to go together, while people who merely think they are smart often lack both. Nikolai remains almost entirely out of the public eye, which Pavel attributes partly to natural modesty and partly to the simple fact that Nikolai doesn't feel the need to perform for an audience.
Nikolai Durov started reading at 3, was reading advanced astronomy books on buses at 6 (to the horror of onlookers), won IMO gold 3 times, ICPC twice, holds 2 math PhDs, and rewrote large chunks of VK's infrastructure in C and C++ to make it faster than Facebook. Pavel says he learned practically everything he knows from Nikolai.
