FOGINT: Pavel Durov Offers a Fix for Lagging US Innovation
February 10, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby emission. No smart software required.
Pavel Durov, familiar to the US Securities & Exchange Commission and the French judiciary, has offered some advice to Americans. Mr. Durov founded Telegram, and he shared some ideas via is Du Rove Channel on Telegram. You can find the message at https://t.me/durov/394. (You do not need to have the Telegram mini app installed to read his post.) Mr. Durov’s message addresses the success of DeepSeek, and the lack of innovation in the United States. He believes that China will dominate the West without positioning his home country as a winner or a loser in AI innovation.
He points out:
Following the success of the Chinese startup Deepseek, many are surprised at how quickly China has caught up with the US in AI. However, China’s progress in algorithmic efficiency hasn’t come out of nothing. Chinese students have long outperformed others in math and programming at international Olympiads.
He then draws a parallel to inform Americans about the reason for the Chinese Deepseek achievement:
When it comes to producing outstanding performers in math and science, China’s secondary education system is superior to that of the West. It fosters fierce competition among students, a principle borrowed from the highly efficient Soviet model.
As you may know, Mr. Durov encountered some friction with Russian authorities when he operated VKontakte, the so-called Russian Facebook. Mr. Durov exited that company, bounced around looking for a suitable location for Telegram. He settled on Dubai and operated a service in order to make free speech a possibility for many people in the world.
Mr. Durov explains the difference between the outstanding Chinese and Russian educational systems and the American approach:
… most Western schools discourage competition, prohibiting public announcements of students’ grades and rankings. The rationale is understandable — to protect students from pressure or ridicule. However, such measures also predictably demotivate the best students. Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Eliminate the losers — and you eliminate the winners.
Mr. Durov’s logic is that educational systems must allow the super achievers to fulfill their destiny. I want to point out that Mr. Durov is rumored to have fathered more than 100 children. Allegedly he will pay a suitable female breeder for the costs of artificial insemination. The idea is that supermen need to produce super children in order for the superior people to improve society.
He then makes clear why China will dominate the West:
Reality, unlike well-meaning school policies, does have public grades and rankings — whether in sports, business, science, or technology. AI benchmarks that demonstrate Deepseek’s superiority are one of such public rankings. And more are coming. Unless the US secondary education system undergoes radical reform, China’s growing dominance in technology seems inevitable.
Several observations are warranted:
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- The clever recasting of his name from Durov to Paul Du Rove is a brilliant play on words. Wordsmiths require time to find the precise way of delivering a bon mot. Mr. Durov has had some time to contemplate his means of expression. He has been confined to France since August 2024.
- His principles of freedom have been modified since his lengthy interview with the American (presumably one who has not fulfilled his intellectual capabilities due to a lack of competition) Tucker Carlson. In that interview, Mr. Durov expressed his commitment to freedom and resisting governmental pressure to compromise the security of Telegram users. However, shortly after the interview, Mr. Durov blocked Ukrainian government messages to Russian users of Telegram.
- Mr. Durov is now responsible for steering Telegram through a number of business challenges while incrementally increasing his cooperation with legal authorities interested in money laundering, human trafficking, and CSAM activities on Telegram.
To sum up, the message from Mr. Durov illustrates his staunch belief in the Chinese and Russian systems. He makes a case that better education generates more innovation. Words from a person under the control of the French judicial system speak volumes.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
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