Outside of libertarian-inclined Silicon Valley VCs, Ukraine War obsessives, and crypto enthusiasts, Telegram was not on most Americans’ radars before this weekend. That changed on Saturday when French authorities arrested its Russian-born founder, Pavel Durov, sending the internet aflutter with debates of content moderation and the meddling of superpowers.
Even if you weren’t paying attention to Telegram before Durov was detained upon deboarding from his private plane in Paris, the messaging app company is one of the most fascinating tech stories of the past decade. For one, it has managed to attract more than 900 million users, and—according to Durov at least—approach profitability without selling equity in the company to VCs. Instead, Telegram has relied on billions of dollars in debt financing from players like Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and Russia’s state-run investment fund.
