
Telegram team left Russia and looking for a country to work from - andreyvit
https://www.facebook.com/durov/posts/10152105672952029
======
andreyvit
Citation from a Facebook post by Pavel Durov (founder of vk.com and Telegram),
for those who don't want to open Facebook:

\---

As you probably know, I am out of Russia. Me and my team of 12 engineers have
a temporary HQ in Central Europe, and we are now looking for a permanent base
to work from. We are choosing a new home, a country that will allow us to
develop our projects with privacy and freedom of speech in mind.

Our team includes 6 ACM champions and 6 winners of other programming contests.
These guys made it possible for Telegram Messenger to gather 40 million
registered users worldwide just within 8 months after its launch. Several
members of this team, including my brother, were crucial in making VKontakte
what it is today — the only social network that defeated Facebook in an open
local market. We are now going to build our next project, a mobile social
network.

What country or city do you think would suit us best? Please feel free to
comment below. To give you an idea of our preferences, we dislike bureaucracy,
police states, big governments, wars, socialism and excessive regulation. We
like freedoms, strong judicial systems, small governments, free markets,
neutrality and civil rights.

P.S. If you happen to represent a government that meets our criteria, you are
welcome to share ideas with me at durov2016@gmail.com.

~~~
Bootvis
Switzerland, what else?

Words unfortunately spoken by someone from the Netherlands.

~~~
patrickaljord
I read a year ago that the Netherlands were about to pass big reforms to
shrink the welfare state. Did that ever happen?

~~~
mtrimpe
Also; not really. Small changes on the fringes and generally lowering welfare
payouts but nothing too massive, luckily.

Firing was made a lot easier in the private sector though; reducing it to
_essentially_ at will employment with a forced separation allowance.

------
cyphunk
I'd recommend Berlin or Israel. The latter I'm very surprised would make my
list but only under these special circumstances.

ISRAEL: It is by far the most disgustingly capitalistic country I've ever
lived in but the VK crew may find this to their benefit. They will also find a
nice and strong Russian community in Israel and a large pool of talent to pull
from. What they will not find there is any sort of non-commercial activity
(non-edu research, hacker spaces, fringe technical movement of any type) nor
will they find a government interested in free speech. And they will have to
turn a blind eye to all the shit their tax dollars will be put toward.

BERLIN: If you want free speech then definitely go to Berlin. Germanys
conservative government comes off more liberal than the US's most liberal
government. You'll find strong party factions with ties to post-NSA thinkers
and movers. The place is beaming with intellectual discourse. It is also a
hacker mecca so there are plenty of fringe technological movements. What you
will not find is a large tech community (though it is growing fast) nor a very
money driven culture.

Go to Berlin if you want to make impact on the world. Go to Israel if you want
to make money.

~~~
HenryMc
> ISRAEL

I don't think it would meet the no wars criteria (probably the police state
one too).

------
sergiotapia
Come down to Santa Cruz, Bolivia!

Minimal bureaucracy, you can register your company in an afternoon.
[http://www.fundempresa.org.bo/](http://www.fundempresa.org.bo/)

You can buy a huge location for peanuts. Or even rent a huge mansion for
$2000/month. I'm talking about a place that could house a team of 50 easily.

Weather is really beautiful, 90% of the time it's warm and sunny. The winter
months are May/June/July. With only 1 week or two of real 'winter' weather.

Lots of untapped talent. The best developers here work for outsourcing
companies making about $1000-$1200/month. If you were to offer $2000 you can
easily poach the best.

Cost of living is minimal. $600/month and you're set.

~~~
gerbal
Language barrier may be a problem, but offering premium wages might find a
surprising number of russian and english speakers.

~~~
StavrosK
Spanish is pretty easy to learn, though, no?

~~~
pault
The syntax is straightforward, but the standard library is large, and some of
the forks are mutually incompatible.

------
qwerta
For small innovating business-friendly countries I would suggest Estonia or
Slovakia. If you like sea and nice weather Slovenia, Croatia or Monte Negro.

~~~
rplnt
Slovakia is nice nature-wise, but I would probably chose Czech Republic over
it. Slovakia is pretty religious, meaning they don't like homosexuals and
drugs (harsh possible sentences for users). Corruption is pretty high as well,
though I doubt it's much worse from any of the mentioned countries.

~~~
qwerta
I am actually Czech and my business is based in Prague :-)

Slovakia made lot of progress in past 10 years. In business friendlies it is
ahead, it also has more stable and simpler laws. In Czech rep every new
government totally changes taxes, accounting, working law...

Religion wise I do not know. Czech republic is probably the most agnostic
country in Europe (if now in the world), and I have not noticed much
difference in tolerance compared to Slovakia. Being from Russia will be
probably bigger issue.

------
cliveowen
"We are now going to build our next project, a mobile social network."

The chances of becoming a serious Whatsapp competitor have just vanished.
Focus is everything, spread too thin and you're done for good.

~~~
danabramov
From what I heard, Telegram was intended as a testbed and the team didn't
quite expect the exposure it received.

This is going to be a separate product from Telegram. Durov knows what focus
is, he kept VK very focused while he was around.

------
danabramov
Narnia looks like a safe choice.

~~~
sdfjkl
It suffered from recent political instability.

------
logicchains
Singapore. In response to the preferences they expressed on Facebook, it's got
little bureaucracy, a small government, no wars, minimal regulation, a strong
judicial system, a relatively free market (ranked no. 2 in the world for
economic freedom).

Not such a free place if you want to displace the government or use
recreational drugs, however, but business-wise it's pretty open.

~~~
jpatokal
For the average business, sure( _), but Telegram isn 't your average business.
Singapore is a police state, and it isn't particularly big on freedoms, strong
judicial systems (for anything remotely political) or civil rights.

(_) [http://gyrovague.com/2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-
entrep...](http://gyrovague.com/2013/10/30/half-the-donut-why-an-entrepreneur-
earning-100k-gets-to-keep-over-99k-in-singapore-but-under-57k-in-san-
francisco/)

~~~
logicchains
As far as I'm aware though they haven't persecuted anyone for encryption-
related business. What rights/freedoms are there that are important to
Telegram but endangered in Singapore (not rhetorical; serious question)?

------
mynegation
Canada, Toronto specifically, but other cities are great too.

Canadian government is decidedly anti-Putin. Canada has both start-up visa
program[0] and business immigration program[1]. Lots of talent. As for
bureaucracy, police state, regulation, and big governments - really depends on
whom you ask and everything is relative so I'll leave it at that.

[0] [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-
up/ind...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/index.asp)

[1]
[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/)

------
kaivi
Longyearbyen, Norway.

They even have high-speed optic fiber on the island. And here is a nice
property for sale, should be great for a small team of 2-4:
[http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/homes/object?finnkode=448...](http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/homes/object?finnkode=44864871)
Plane tickets to the mainland are dirt cheap.

Anyway, that is my dream – to get a comfortable, cozy place far away from the
continent. Whatever happens out in the world, will likely not distract me from
work.

Edit: >They have a team of 12

Well then, one could always buy land and build on it. Also on Svalbard, taxes
are pretty low.

------
funkyy
If you are in central europe you can pick Poland (northern Gdansk or western
Poznan - Gdansk is web hub of country, Poznan is business and web hub).

Poland is not really friends with Russian government lately so they will
protect you. Also - not like small countries - they are large enough to stand
strong on any requests from big countries about data sharing etc. Some Polish
people speaks russian and most young speak english so you would be covered.
Cultural differences are not huge so it would be easy to blend in for you.

Another guess - Ireland. Country in Nato but in reality its neutral. There is
only 12.5% corporate tax, social is pretty good and everybody speaks english.
Just pick Dublin or Cork - those are more "ahead" cities. They have good web
connection and there are some activities in them. They are also safe. Country
is extremely friendly to web startups (good network - lots of free help).
Prices are really high though.

Canada - it might be hard for visa (unless you state your reason of data
protection - Canada is another country having issues with Putins politics).
Canada protects freedom to speech and they can protect your data from russia
easily. Energy independent (nobody can bully them) is pretty expensive though.
Pick Vancouver or Toronto. If you are hardcore - choose Calgary - harsh
weather but 0% state tax and business oriented community.

There are also places like New Zealand (might be to remote), Vietnam or
Phillipines (to small to really give good protection), Japan (expensive and
cultural differences might be a problem). Good luck!

------
sumoward
If you are interested in Ireland there are some pretty useful government
agencies that encourage business locating here.

[http://www.idaireland.com/help/](http://www.idaireland.com/help/)

------
junto
Berlin would be a smart bet. Lots of engineers and other tech companies.

A history of privacy violations has resulted in a favourable right to privacy
enshrined in law. It isn't watertight, but it is better than many others.

------
socialist_coder
Ahh, the search for a country that doesn't exist. Good luck!

------
ziggamon
How poetic of him to post this on Facebook of all places!

------
chunkiestbacon
I just love the answer of a russian which posted an image of the international
space station. Might be worth a try.

Switzerland is a good location, regarding laws and no corruption. I wonder
however how they are going to get work permits anywhere in westeurope tough,
when they are all russians. I guess investing a lot of money might fix that
problem.

------
porkbird
I'd also suggest Berlin, but aren't they in berlin already? If so, I'd be
interested to know why are they looking for yet another country? Sure, you
need to know some German to get around, but otherwise berlin has a pretty good
climate for startups (and the cost of living is not as high as in Switzerland
or Iceland).

------
return0
I realize we need a new country, a new "Wild West". How is that seasteading
country doing?

~~~
computer
A bunch of countries in Africa probably fit much of your wanted model. Not
everything there is hunger, murder and poverty.

~~~
postsantum
Can you name some?

~~~
computer
I have friends in Tanzania, and you could also consider South-Africa, and
probably a lot more that I don't know anything about. But it depends on
exactly what kind of "Wild West" you're looking for, and I'm no expert on
Africa.

------
rebolek
I would suggest some South American country. Military coups seems like a thing
of past and they're pissed at US for various reasons (like spying on them and
supporting all those military coups in first place). Something like Uruguay?

~~~
kjs3
Costa Rica? My brothers company has had a software development subsidiary
there for more than a decade. Upside: Educated, motivated workforce,
reasonable business climate, short plane ride to US and rest of S. America.
Great weather and outdoors. Downside: it's not yet quite up to EU or US
infrastructure standards, which could cause issues (all of which can be
mitigated). Cost of living is not a cheap as it once was. Traffic in San Juan
sucks. There will definitely be some cultural issues to be aware of between
Slavs and S. Americans. If he's really rabidly anti-socialist, they have
universal health care.

------
willvarfar
How about leaving Europe for ... Bali?

Its all over the BBC News today:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27043778](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27043778)

------
HenryMc
Australia is pretty good. The government could be a little smaller, but it's
not too bad. Melbourne and Sydney have a pretty good tech scene.

The weather is different from Russia.

------
darkhorn
Why not Bulgaria.

------
narrator
Ecuador, Bolivia or Uruguay?

------
glasz
> freedoms, strong judicial systems, small governments, free markets,
> neutrality and civil rights

i wonder what ppl from the east think europe is. europe is one big of a mess
of enforced conformity. souvereignty was not in that list but i think it's
implied. there's no such thing in any eu country (except uk, maybe). even
switzerland has laid down to their masters overseas.

civil rights, small government, neutrality? get out of here as long as you
can, buddy.

~~~
negus
except uk? even in China there is no
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law)

~~~
glasz
there. thanks for proving my point and exposing all those downvoting bastards.
not that i care but i guess jtrig just pays too much.

[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

