Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #482

发布时间 2025-09-30 19:27:11 来源

摘要

Pavel Durov is the founder and CEO of Telegram. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: ...

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中英文字稿

The following is a conversation with Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, a messaging platform actively used by over 1 billion people. Pavel has spent his life fighting for freedom of speech, building tools that protect human communication from surveillance and censorship. For this, he has faced pressure from some of the most powerful governments and organizations on Earth. In the face of this immense pressure, he has always held his ground, continuously fighting to protect user privacy and the freedom of all of us humans to communicate with each other.

以下是与帕维尔·杜罗夫的对话。他是消息平台Telegram的创始人兼首席执行官，该平台活跃用户超过10亿人。帕维尔一生都在为言论自由而努力，致力于打造保护人类交流不受监控和审查的工具。正因如此，他面临着来自全球一些最强大政府和组织的压力。在如此巨大的压力面前，他始终坚持立场，不断努力保护用户隐私，以及我们所有人自由交流的权利。

I got the chance to spend a few weeks with him and can definitively say that he is one of the most principled and fearless humans I've ever met. Plus, when I posted that I'm hanging out with Pavel, a lot of people, fans of his, wrote to me asking if he does, in fact, privately live the disciplined, aesthetic life he's known for. No alcohol, stoic mindset, strict diet and exercise, including a crazy amount of daily pull ups and push ups, no phone except to occasion to test telegram features and so on. Yes, he is 100% that guy, which made the experience of hanging out with him really inspiring to me. I'm grateful for it and I'm grateful to now be able to call him a friend.

我有机会和他相处了几个星期，可以肯定地说，他是我见过的最有原则、最无畏的人之一。而且，当我发布消息说我在和Pavel一起玩时，很多他的粉丝给我写信，询问他私下是否真如大家所知那样过着自律且简单的生活。不喝酒，保持冷静的心态，严格的饮食和锻炼，包括每天疯狂的引体向上和俯卧撑，不用手机，除非偶尔测试Telegram功能，等等。是的，他完全就是这样一个人，这让我和他一起度过的时光非常鼓舞人心。我对此心存感激，并且很高兴现在能称他为朋友。

This podcast conversation is in parts philosophical about freedom, life, human nature and the nature of government bureaucracies and it is also in parts super technical because to me, it is fascinating that telegram has a relatively small engineering team and yet is able to basically out-innovate all of his competitors with an insane rate of introducing new unique features. Just like the meme of the Simpsons did at first, you consider all the features we know and love in our communication apps. In almost every case, telegram did it first. So we discuss it all from the Kafka-esque situation he's in the midst of in France to the rollercoaster of his life and career to his philosophy on technology, freedom and human condition.

这段播客对话既包含了关于自由、生活、人性和政府官僚机构性质的哲学讨论，也包含了一些非常技术性的内容。让我感兴趣的是，Telegram的工程团队规模相对较小，却能够以惊人的速度推出新的独特功能，超越所有竞争对手。就像《辛普森一家》中的那个梗一样，当你想到我们在通信应用中喜爱的所有功能时，几乎每一种都是Telegram率先推出的。因此，我们在这次对话中探讨了他在法国面临的卡夫卡式境遇，到他人生与职业的过山车般经历，再到他对技术、自由和人类状况的哲学看法。

And by the way, while this entire conversation is in English, we make captions and voice over audio tracks available in multiple languages including Russian, Ukrainian, French and Hindi. On YouTube, you can switch between language audio tracks by clicking the settings gear icon, then clicking audio track and then selecting the language you prefer. Huge thank you once again to 11 labs for their help with translation and dubbing and with the bigger mission of breaking down barriers that language creates. They are truly one of the most remarkable companies I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

顺便说一下，虽然整个对话是用英语进行的，但我们提供了包括俄语、乌克兰语、法语和印地语在内的多种语言字幕和语音音轨。在 YouTube 上，您可以通过点击设置齿轮图标，然后点击音轨，并选择您喜欢的语言来切换音轨。再次对11 labs表示由衷的感谢，感谢他们在翻译和配音方面的帮助，并共同致力于消除语言障碍的更大使命。他们确实是我合作过的最出色的公司之一。

This is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now dear friends, here's Pablo, Durauff. You've been an advocate for freedom for many years, writing that you should be ready to risk everything for freedom. What were some influences and insights that help you arrive at this value of human freedom? I get to experience the difference between a society with freedom and society without freedom pretty early in life. I was four years old when my family moved from the Soviet Union to Northern Italy and I could see that a society without freedom cannot enjoy the abundance of opinions, of ideas, of goods and services.

这是莱克斯·弗里德曼的播客节目以支持它。请查看描述中的赞助商，亲爱的朋友们，现在为您介绍巴勃罗·杜罗夫。您多年来一直是自由的倡导者，并写道应该为自由做好一切准备以冒险。有哪些影响和见解帮助您确立了这种对人类自由的价值观？我很早就体验到了一个有自由的社会和一个没有自由的社会之间的差异。四岁时，我的家人从苏联搬到了意大利北部，我可以看到一个没有自由的社会无法享受多样的意见、思想、商品和服务。

Even for a four or five-year-old kid it was obvious. You can't experience all the toys, the ice cream swords, the cartoons in the Soviet Union that you can access in Italy and then I got to realize something even more important. You don't get to contribute to this abundance without freedom. And at this point, it was pretty obvious to me. You also wrote, so both the Vaginianie Djenek translates to freedom matters more than money. How do you prevent these values for freedom being corrupted by money, by people with influence, by people with power?

即便是四五岁的小孩也能看出来。在意大利，你能玩到各种玩具、冰激凌剑、动画片，而在苏联却无法体验到这些。后来我意识到一个更重要的道理：没有自由，就无法为这种丰富贡献力量。在这一点上，对我来说已经很明显了。你还写道，“Vaginianie Djenek” 的意思是自由比金钱更重要。那么，如何防止这些自由的价值观被金钱、权势人物或有影响力的人所腐蚀呢？

Well the biggest enemy of freedom are fear and greed. So you make sure that they don't stand in your way. If you imagine the worst thing that can happen to you and then make yourself be comfortable with it, there is nothing more left to be afraid of. So you stand your ground and you remember that it's worth living your life according to the principles that you believe in even though this life can end up being shorter than a longer life but lived in slavery.

自由最大的敌人是恐惧和贪婪。所以，你要确保它们不会阻碍你的道路。如果你能想象出自己可能遭遇的最糟糕情况，并让自己坦然面对，那么就没有什么可怕的了。你要坚定立场，记住：按照自己信仰的原则去生活是值得的，即使这样的生活可能会比在奴役中更短暂。

Do you contemplate your mortality? Anything about your death? Oh yes. Are you afraid of it? In a way you have to go against your instinct of self-preservation and it's not easy. We are all biological beings hard-coded to be afraid of death. Nobody wants to die. But when you approach it rationally, you leave and then you die. There is no such thing as your death in your life. You stop experiencing life once you die. So you have to ask yourself this question, is it worth living a life full of fear of death? Or it's much more enjoyable to forget about this and leave your life in a way that makes you immune to this fear. At the same time remembering that death exists so that every day would count.

你会思考自己的死亡吗？关于死亡的任何事情？哦，会的。你害怕死亡吗？在某种程度上，你需要对抗自身的求生本能，而这并不容易。我们都是被生物本能编码成害怕死亡的，没有人想死。但当你理性地面对它时，你会发现，生时活着，然后离开这个世界。你的人生中并不存在“死亡”这件事情。因为一旦你死去，就不再体验生命。所以你应该问自己这个问题，是否值得为了害怕死亡而活一辈子？或者，是不是更应该忘记这种恐惧，过一种让自己免于这种恐惧的生活。同时也要记住，死亡是存在的，这样每一天都会有意义。

Yeah, remembering that death exists makes you deeply feel every moment that you do get. That's why I love reminding myself that I can die any day. In many ways, you live a pretty stoke existence. I got a chance to spend a couple of weeks with you. In many ways you seek to minimize the negative effects of the outside world on your mind. You've written, quote, if you want to reach your full potential and maintain clarity of mind, stay away from addictive substances. My success and health are the result of 20 plus years of complete abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, pills, and illegal drugs. Short term pleasure isn't worth your future.

当然，意识到死亡的存在会让你更加深刻地感受每一个当下。这就是为什么我喜欢提醒自己，我随时可能离开人世。在很多方面，你的生活是充满活力的。我有机会和你共度了几周。在很多方面，你都努力减少外界对你心灵的负面影响。你曾写过这样一段话：如果你想要充分发挥自己的潜力并保持头脑清晰，就要远离上瘾的物质。我的成功和健康是20多年来完全戒掉酒精、烟草、咖啡、药丸和非法药物的结果。短暂的快乐不值得你为此牺牲未来。

Let's talk about it each one of these. Alcohol. What's been your philosophy behind that? That one is quite easy. When I was 11 years old, my biochemistry teacher, he gave me this book here, it was called The Illusion of Paradise. And there he would describe the biological and chemical processes that happened in your body once you consume this or that substance. It was mainly related to illegal drugs, but alcohol was one of these addictive substances that he covered.

让我们逐个来谈论这些问题。酒精。你对酒精有什么看法？这个问题对我来说比较简单。当我11岁的时候，我的生物化学老师给了我一本书，叫做《天堂的幻觉》。书中描述了当你摄入某种物质后，身体内部发生的生物和化学过程。虽然书的主要内容是关于非法药物，但它也涉及到酒精等成瘾物质。

It turns out that when you drink alcohol, the thing that happens is that your brain cells become paralyzed. They become literally zombies. And then the next day, sometimes after the party is over, some of your brain cells die and never get to normal. So think about it. If your brain is this most valuable tool you have in your journey to success and happiness, why would you destroy this tool for short term pleasure? This sounds ridiculous.

事实证明，当你喝酒时，会发生的事情是你的脑细胞会瘫痪。它们实际上变得像僵尸一样。然后在第二天，有时在派对结束后，你的一些脑细胞会死亡，永远无法恢复正常。所以想想看，如果你的大脑是你在追求成功和幸福道路上最有价值的工具，为什么要为了短暂的快乐而破坏这个工具呢？这听起来多么荒唐。

Yeah, in many ways, it's a poison to let in our body, but by way of advice, what advice would you give to people who consider not drinking? A lot of people use alcohol to enable them to have a vibrant social life. There's a lot of pressure in some society, you know, at a party, to drink so you can socialize. So what advice would you give to them? Allow to people who imagine having a social life without alcohol?

是的，在很多方面，酒精就像是一种毒药滋扰我们的身体。但如果有人考虑戒酒，你会给他们什么建议？很多人依赖酒精来活跃他们的社交生活。在某些社会中，在派对上喝酒以便更好社交的压力很大。那么，你会给他们什么建议呢？对于那些想象在没有酒精的情况下依然能够社交的人，你会怎么说？

Well, first of all, don't be afraid to be contrarian. Set your own rules. Secondly, if you feel you need to drink, there must be some problem you're trying to conceal. There's something that some fear you're not ready to confront. And you have to address this fear. If there is a good-looking girl, you're afraid to approach, get rid of this fear, approach her, practice, do it again and again. It's pretty banal, but this advice works. Fix the underlying problem, which is usually at the very bottom is always going to be fear. Work on that.

好的，首先，不要害怕与众不同，要制定自己的规则。其次，如果你感觉需要喝酒，可能是你在试图掩盖某些问题，也许有些恐惧你还没有准备好面对。然而，你必须正视这个恐惧。如果有个好看的女生让你不敢接近，那就克服这种恐惧，去接触她，多多练习，不断尝试。这样的方法虽然看似普通，但很有效。解决那些潜在问题，最根本的往往就是恐惧。努力去解决这些恐惧。

And very often people are trying to escape something in their lives with alcohol. What is it they're trying to escape? What is this problem? You have to get to the bottom of it. Your mind is trying to tell you something valuable. And instead of addressing it directly, you are flooding it in alcohol, which is sort of a spiritual pain killer, but works only temporarily. And then you have to pay the debt with interest.

很多时候，人们尝试通过饮酒来逃避生活中的某些问题。那么，他们想要逃避的到底是什么呢？这个问题是什么？你需要深入了解它。你的内心正在试图传达一些重要的信息。可是你没有直接解决它，而是用酒精来淹没它。酒精就像是一种精神上的止痛药，但只能暂时有效。然后，你还得连本带利地偿还这笔债。

So what do you do? I mean, you've been a lot of gatherings, a lot of parties. Is there some challenges to saying no? For me not at all. I've been always ready to stand my ground and say, no, when I feel something is not right. And it's extraordinary how easily we humans are affected by what we perceive as majority. Because nobody, since ancient times, since million years ago, wants to be left out by the tribe, we are scared that we won't become accepted anymore, which thousands of years ago meant we were going to starve to death.

那么，你是做什么的呢？我的意思是，你参加了很多聚会和派对。在拒绝别人时，你会感到有挑战吗？对我来说完全不会。我一直都能坚定立场，在感觉不对劲的时候说“不”。令人惊讶的是，我们人类很容易受到所谓“多数意见”的影响。因为自古以来，几百万年前，人们就不想被部落排斥，我们害怕不再被接受，而在几千年前，这意味着我们可能会饿死。

So we have to consciously fight this inclination to be agreeable with everything that the majority imposes on you. Because it's quite clear that many things that the majority, many activities, the majority in is engaging in are not bringing you any good. So that's another fear you have to face. Going into a party and the fear of being the outcast at that party of being different than others at that party, at that social gathering in the crowd of humans be different at the fear.

所以，我们必须有意识地抵制这种倾向，不要对大多数人强加给你的事情全盘接受。因为很明显，大多数人所参与的很多活动并不会对你有好处。这是另一个需要面对的恐惧：去参加派对时，害怕因为与众不同而被视为异类的恐惧。在社交聚会上，在人群中，你要面对这种与众不同的恐惧。

That's the fear. And it's quite irrational if you think about it. It was something that made a lot of sense 20,000 years ago. It makes zero sense today. Because if you think about it, if you do the same thing everybody else around you is doing, you don't have any competitive advantage. And you don't get to become outstanding at some point in your life.

那就是恐惧所在。如果仔细想想，这种恐惧其实相当不合理。20,000年前也许很有道理，但在今天完全没有意义。试想一下，如果你总是和周围的人做同样的事情，就没有任何竞争优势。这样一来，你就无法在人生的某个时刻变得出类拔萃。

Yeah, that's one of the things we talked about sort of by way of advice is if you want to be successful in life, you want to be different. Different. And perhaps I think you said you want to achieve mastery at a niche. So find a niche at which you can pursue with all your effort and achieve mastery.

是的，这是我们在建议中谈到的事情之一：如果你想在生活中取得成功，你就要与众不同。与众不同。或许你提到过，你想在某个小领域里达到精通。所以，找到一个你可以全力以赴并达到精通的小领域。

And the niche being different than anything that anybody else is doing. Can you explain that a little bit more? So obviously in order to contribute to the society you're in to the economy of the country, you live in, they have to do something that is valuable. But if you're doing something that everybody else is doing anyway, what's the value of it? Now, it sounds easier than it is done to do something that nobody else is doing. Because we humans is surrounded by all kinds of information, which makes us want to copy what we are perceiving. At the same time, there are so many areas which you can explore that have nothing to do with the information you receive on the daily basis.

翻译如下：这个利基市场与任何其他人正在做的事情都不同。你能详细解释一下吗？显然，为了对你所在社会和国家的经济做出贡献，人们必须做一些有价值的事情。但是，如果你做的事情是别人都在做的，那它的价值又在哪里呢？做一些没有别人做过的事情听起来比实际操作要简单，因为我们人类被各种信息包围，这些信息会影响我们去模仿所看到的事物。但同时，还有许多与我们日常接收到的信息无关的领域可以探索。

So it's extremely important to curate the information sources that you have so that you wouldn't be somebody who is left to the will of AI-based algorithmic feed telling you what's important so that you end up consuming the same information, the same stuff, the same memes, the same news as everybody else. But rather, you should be proactive. You should deliberately try to set a goal, an area that you want to explore, and then actively search information that is relevant to this field. So that one day you can become the world's number one expert in this field. And it's not that difficult to do that. You have to just remain consistent because nobody else is trying to do that.

所以，精心挑选信息来源是非常重要的，这样你就不会被人工智能算法推送的内容左右，不会跟随大众消费相同的信息、相同的内容、相同的段子和新闻。相反，你应该主动出击，有意识地设定目标和想要探索的领域，然后积极寻找与这个领域相关的信息。这样，将来你就有可能成为这个领域的第一专家。这并不是件困难的事，你只需要保持持续的努力，因为没有多少人会这样去做。

Everybody else is just reading the same news and discussing the same news every day. But this way, they don't get to have a competitive advantage. Yeah, majority of the population becomes slaves to the AI recommender systems. AI-driven recommender systems. And so the content everybody's fed is the same thing and we all become the same. On that point, one of the different things you do is you don't use a phone, except occasionally to test telegram features. But I've been with you for two weeks. I've been seeing you use a phone at all. In the way that most people use a phone like for their social media.

其他人每天都在阅读相同的新闻，讨论相同的新闻。因此，他们无法获得竞争优势。大多数人被AI推荐系统奴役。AI驱动的推荐系统让大家接收到的内容都一样，结果我们都变得相同。在这方面，你的做法不同之处在于你不用手机，除了偶尔测试一下Telegram的功能。我和你在一起两周了，从没见过你像大多数人那样，用手机刷社交媒体。

So can you describe your philosophy behind that? I don't think a phone is a necessary device. I remember growing up, I didn't have a mobile phone. When I was a student at the university, I didn't have a mobile phone. When I finally got it to use a mobile phone, I never used phone calls. I was always in an airplane mode or mute. I hated the idea of being disturbed. My philosophy here is pretty simple. I want to define what is important in my life. I don't want other people or companies. All kinds of organizations telling me what is important today and what I should be thinking about to set up here on agenda.

你能描述一下你背后的理念吗？我认为手机并不是一个必需的设备。我记得在成长过程中，我没有手机。当我在大学念书时，我也没有手机。最终得到了手机后，我从来不用它打电话。我的手机总是处于飞行模式或静音状态。我讨厌被打扰的感觉。我的理念很简单：我想自己定义生活中什么是重要的，而不是让其他人或公司，以及各种组织来告诉我今天什么重要，或者我应该关注什么。

And the phone gets in your way. It provides distractions. It guides what you should be looking at, where you will be looking at. So you don't want that. You want to quiet the mind. You want to choose what kind of stuff you let inside your mind. Yes, because this way I can contribute to the progress of society or at least I like to think this way. And this makes me happier. How often do you find quiet times to just think and focus deeply on work without any distractions? You mentioned to me that you value quiet mornings.

手机会影响你的正常生活，给你带来干扰。它引导你去关注某些内容和方向，而不是由你自己决定。所以你不希望这样，你希望让内心保持平静，自己选择要让哪些信息进入大脑。是的，因为这样我认为自己可以为社会进步做贡献，或者至少我是这样认为的，这让我更快乐。你有多久能找到安静的时间来专心思考和深度工作，而不被打扰？你跟我提过，你很重视安静的清晨。

Yes. So the thing I'm trying to do, I try to allocate as much time as possible for sleep. Now, even if I allocate, say, 11 or 12 hours for sleep, I won't sleep for 11 or 12 hours. So what I end up doing is I end up lying in bed thinking. And some people hated this. You have to take a sleeping pill, but I never take pills. I love this moment. I get so many brilliant ideas, or at least they seem brilliant to me at the moment, while I'm lying in bed either late in the evening or early in the morning. That's my favorite time of the day.

是的，我现在在努力做的事情是尽量多留点时间给睡眠。不过，即使我给自己安排了比如说11或12个小时的睡觉时间，我也不会真的睡那么久。所以，我最后就是躺在床上思考。有些人很讨厌这种状态，会吃安眠药，但我从来不吃药。我很享受这个时刻，因为在晚上或者早晨躺在床上的时候，我会有很多闪光的点子，至少在当时我自己觉得很棒。这是我一天中最喜欢的时间。

Sometimes I go, I wake up, I go take a shower, still without a phone. Beautiful ideas can come to you while you're doing your morning exercise, your morning routine without a phone. If you open your phone first thing in the morning, what you end up being is a creature that is told what to think about for the rest of the day. Same is true in a way if you've been consuming news from social media late at night. But then how do you define what is important and what you really want to become in life?

有时候，我醒来后会去洗个澡，这时我还没有拿手机。在做晨练或早晨日常活动的时候，如果没有手机，美好的想法可能会冒出来。如果你一早醒来就第一时间看手机，那你可能会变成一个整天被手机牵着思路走的人。如果晚上睡前一直在社交媒体上看新闻，也是同样的道理。那么，你要如何定义什么是重要的，什么是你真正想在生活中成为的样子呢？

Now, I'm not saying you have to completely stay away from all sources of information, but take some time to think about what's really important for you and what you want to change in this world. So you definitely try to avoid digital devices for as many hours as possible in the morning. Just to have the quiet thinking time plus the crazy monster push-ups. I know it's kind of counterintuitive because I found that one of the largest social networks in the world after which I found that the second largest messaging app in the world. You're supposed to be really connected, but the conclusion you reach very early is that the more connected and accessible you are, the less productive you are.

现在，我并不是说你要完全远离所有信息来源，但可以花点时间思考一下对你真正重要的事情以及你想在这个世界上改变什么。所以，尽量早上尽可能多地避免使用电子设备。这样可以拥有一个安静的思考时间，还有做疯狂俯卧撑。我知道这有点违反直觉，因为我发现自己在世界上最大的社交网络之间周旋，之后又接触到全球第二大通讯应用。按理说，这应该让你更有联系感，但你会很快得出结论：你越是保持在线状态和容易被联系，效率反而越低。

And then how can you run this thing if you're constantly barred by all kinds of information, most of which is irrelevant to the success of what you're trying to build? You know, the entire world can be fascinated by a fight, a quarrel between the world's richest man and the world's most powerful man. But for the vast majority of these people following this saga, it's irrelevant. It won't change their lives. And in any case, they can't affect it. So it's a bit pointless. Of course, there are people who are engaged in activities that require them to be up to date of everything that's going on. But 99% of people aren't. Yeah. The internet, social media presents to us drama. In such a way that we think it's the biggest thing in the world, the most important thing in which the ties of history will turn. But in reality, most things will not turn the ties of history.

然后，如果你经常被各种信息阻碍，大多数与成功无关，你又怎么能运作这个事情呢？你知道，全世界可能会对世界上最富有的人和最有权势的人之间的争斗感到着迷。但是，对于大多数关注这个故事的人来说，这其实无关紧要。它不会改变他们的生活。而且他们也无法影响这个事情。所以有点无谓。当然，有些人的工作需要他们了解一切动态，但99%的人并不需要。是的，互联网和社交媒体以一种让我们觉得是世界上最重要的方式向我们呈现戏剧性事件，让我们以为历史的潮流将由此改变。但实际上，大多数事情并不会改变历史的进程。

And so I guess our challenge is to figure out what is the timeless thing. What is the thing that's happening today is still going to be true in 10, 20 years. And from that, decide what you're going to do. And that's very difficult on social media because everybody's outraged. The news of the day, whatever the quarrel is, that's the thing that's everyone thinks the world will end because of this thing. And then another thing happens the next day. And they're trying to influence your emotions. Yeah. And that's how you get into trouble because you can be forced to make conclusions that are not in your best interest. I've seen you be once again quite stoic about your emotions. You ever get angry, you ever get lonely, you ever get sad, they're all a culture of human emotion.

我们的挑战是弄清楚什么是不受时间影响的东西。今天发生的事情中，有什么在10年、20年后依然会是真实的。然后根据这些来决定你想做什么。这在社交媒体上尤其困难，因为大家都在愤怒不已。每天的新闻，不管是什么争端，让人们觉得这个世界会因为这些事情结束。然后第二天又会发生另外的事情。这样他们就试图影响你的情绪。这会让你陷入困境，因为这样你可能会被迫做出不利于你的结论。我注意到你在情绪方面表现得相当冷静。你有没有生气过，有没有感到孤独过，有没有伤心过，这些都是人类情感的一部分。

And what you do that will make difficult decisions. I'm a human being like everybody else. I do get to experience emotions. Some of them are not very pleasant. But I believe that it's the responsibility of every one of us to cope with these emotions and to learn to work through them. Self-discipline is particularly important because without it, how can you overcome this seemingly endless loop of negativity or despair that ultimately leads to depression for some people? I normally never have depression. I don't remember having depression in the last 20 years at least. Maybe when I was a teenager, but one of the reasons for that is I start doing things. I identify the problem. I can see a solution and I start executing the strategy.

在做出困难决定时，你必须面对这些问题。我和其他人一样是个普通人，也会感受到情绪波动。有些情绪并不太愉快。但是，我相信每个人都有责任去应对这些情绪，并学会克服它们。自律非常重要，因为如果没有自律，怎么能摆脱这种看似无休止的消极循环或绝望呢？这种循环最终可能导致一些人抑郁。我通常没有抑郁症，至少在过去的20年里我没有过抑郁。也许只有在我还是青少年的时候体验过。原因之一是我会开始行动。我能够识别问题，看到解决方案，并开始执行策略。

If you're a stuck in this loop of being worried about something, nothing's ever going to change. People often make this mistake thinking, oh, I should just have some rest and then regain energy. This is not how it works. You gain energy by doing something. So you start doing something then it happens. You feel motivated. You feel inspired. Then ultimately you do something else, a little bit more. It was a little bit more. And in a few years, you may end up achieving great things. That's the thing that people really confuse. If you're stuck in a depressive cycle, even when you really, really, really, really don't want to do anything, do something. Try to make progress because the good feeling comes in the end of that. The whole point is to do first and then feel, not feel and then do. Exactly.

如果你陷入了担忧的循环中，事情就永远不会改变。人们常常犯这样一个错误，认为“哦，我应该休息一下，然后恢复能量”。这不是它的运作方式。你是通过做事情来获得能量的。开始做点事情，接着你会感到有动力，受到启发。然后最终你会做其他事情，一点一点增加。几年后，你可能会取得很大成就。这是人们常常混淆的地方。如果你陷入抑郁循环，即使你真的非常不想做任何事情，也要去做点什么。尝试取得进步，因为好的感觉是在最后到来的。关键是先做再感受，而不是先感受然后再做。明白吗？

Going to the gym is a good example. There are many days when you don't want to start working out. But you have to overcome this initial reluctance. Then you get to a point that you enjoy it. And you think, oh my god, it was such a good idea to come to the gym today. But it's similar to pretty much every activity. You get to write some code. Write a small piece of code first. And then you get inspired. Then you come up with more ideas. You need to write a novel or just write a paragraph. This is pretty obvious and it's not a secret. But because we are bombarded with all kinds of information that is not really important for us in terms of becoming successful, we often forget the important things.

去健身房就是一个很好的例子。很多时候你可能不想开始锻炼，但你必须克服最初的不情愿。然后你会到达一个享受它的阶段，并且感叹，天哪，今天来健身房真是个好主意。但这与几乎所有活动相似。你要写代码，就先写一小段，然后你会受到启发，想到更多的点子。你需要写小说，或者哪怕只是写一段话。这很明显，并不是什么秘密。但由于我们不断被各种对成功其实并不重要的信息所轰炸，我们经常会忘记那些重要的事情。

And this is one of them. We've been working out every single day. You have been working out for many years, pretty intensively. So I think a lot of people would love to know what's your perfect daily workout regimen. Let's say on a daily on a weekly basis. I do 300 pushups and 300 squats every morning. And in addition to that, I go to the gym normally five, six times a week, spending between one and two hours every day. So pushups and squats are still a big part of your routine. Yes, this is how I start my day. I'm not sure they do a lot in terms of changing your body, but they're definitely a good way to practice self-discipline.

这就是其中之一。我们每天都在锻炼。你已经锻炼了很多年，而且非常投入。所以我想很多人都想知道你的完美日常锻炼计划是什么样的。比如说每天或每周的安排。我每天早上会做300个俯卧撑和300个深蹲。此外，我通常每周去健身房五到六次，每次花一到两个小时。所以俯卧撑和深蹲仍然是你日常锻炼的重要组成部分。是的，我这样开始我的一天。我不确定它们是否能明显改变你的身体，但是它们绝对是锻炼自律的好方法。

Because you don't want to do this pushups and the morning most of the days, squats are particularly boring. They're not that hard. They're just boring. But you overcome it. And then it's much easier to start doing other things related to your work, for example. When I can, I also take a nice bath because it's another exercise of self-discipline. I think the main muscle you can exercise is this muscle, the muscle of self-discipline. You know, not your biceps or your pecs or anything else. Because if you get to train that one, everything else just comes by itself. Everything else becomes easy.

因为大多数早晨你不想做俯卧撑和深蹲，主要是因为深蹲特别无聊。它们不是很难，只是很无聊。但你克服了这个无聊感。这样一来，开始做与你工作相关的其他事情就容易多了。如果有可能，我还会泡个舒服的澡，因为这也是一种自律的练习。我认为你可以锻炼的主要肌肉是自律的肌肉，而不是你的肱二头肌、胸肌或其他肌肉。因为如果你能锻炼这块肌肉，其他一切都会随之而来。其他事情都会变得简单。

We should mention, I went with you to Banya and I think it's fair to say you're nuts. In terms of how much you can handle. And I didn't even see the worst of it. Can you just speak to your crazy escapades in the Banya? What value do you get from it? So both the heat and the cold. I don't know if it's crazy. I think it's quite natural and normal by this time. But maybe I could just get used to it. So Banya is this extreme kind of sauna practiced by Eastern Europeans. But it is done in a way that maximizes heat and they also use all kind of herbs and branches. It's a much more holistic and natural experience.

我们应该提到，我和你一起去了Banya，我觉得可以公平地说，你真是个疯子。这是指你的承受能力。我甚至还没见识到最糟糕的部分。你能谈谈你在Banya的疯狂经历吗？你从中得到了哪些好处？包括热和冷。我不知道这是否算疯狂。我觉得现在这已经变得相当自然和正常了。可能我只是习惯了。Banya是东欧人实践的一种极端桑拿方式，但它以极致的高温著称，他们还会使用各种草药和树枝。这是一种更加整体和自然的体验。

Then a mystery part of it is you get the cold punch. And then you go back. And again, this is one of the things that maybe in the moment is not always that pleasant, particularly if you go to extreme temperatures. You don't feel great. I don't always feel great. But this feeling is passing. It's only a few minutes. Same with the ice bath. You have to suffer a bit. And then you get to feel great for hours and days after. What's more, it gives you this long-term health benefits. In a way, you can look at it as alcohol in reverse. Alcohol will give you this short, fleeting pleasure for an hour, for a couple of hours. But then you will be paying for it with long-term negative consequences. I'd rather do Banya in ice bath.

然后，其中一个神秘的部分就是你会体验到冷水冲击。然后你再回去。这种感觉在当下可能并不总是那么愉快，特别是当你进入极端温度时。你可能会觉得不太好受，我也经常有这种感觉。不过，这种感觉会很快消失，只持续几分钟。和冰浴是一样的，你需要忍受一点痛苦，之后你会在接下来几个小时甚至几天感到非常好。更重要的是，这还能给你带来长期的健康益处。从某种意义上说，你可以把它看作是与酒精相反的东西。酒精会让你在一两个小时内得到短暂的愉悦，但之后你需要为它的长期负面后果买单。我宁愿选择桑拿和冰浴。

We swam the length of a large lake in France a couple times. Can you talk through why you value these multi-hour swims? I left swimming for hours. The longest day swam was five and a half hours. In Finland was quite cold. I got lost in the process. barely could find my way back. But the reason I do it, yes, you feel great after. You're shaking a little bit. You feel great after. We cross a huge lake and I cross many lakes. Geneva Lake, Zurich Lake. Every time you feel this achievement, which makes you happy, makes you feel strong. And then you're more ready to other challenges.

我们在法国游了几次一个大湖的全程。你能聊一聊为什么你重视这些长达数小时的游泳吗？我曾经游了几个小时。最长的一天游了五个半小时。在芬兰天气很冷，我在过程中迷路了，几乎找不到回去的路。但我这么做的原因是，你完成后感觉非常好。你会有些颤抖，但感觉很好。我们横渡了一个大湖，我还渡过许多湖泊，比如日内瓦湖和苏黎世湖。每次都会有一种成就感，这让你开心，让你觉得自己更强大，也更准备好面对其他挑战。

And of course, when you know you're going to start a journey that will last a few hours, you're reluctant to do it. But you swim for 10 minutes and then for 20 minutes and 30 minutes. And teaches you these incredible patience that I think is necessary if you want to achieve anything in life. And it's pretty meditative lake versus ocean. Yes, and you don't have to go too fast. You can be slow and enjoy the moment. Until you get lost and it's five and a half hours, is you panic like if you're going to be able to find the shore or find joy out? Not really. I'm a reasonably stress-resistant person. I didn't panic at that moment.

当然，当你知道要开始一段将持续几个小时的旅程时，你可能会有些不情愿。但你先游上10分钟，然后是20分钟、30分钟。这段经历教会了你一种不可思议的耐心，我认为这种耐心在你想要在生活中取得成就时是必不可少的。而在湖里游泳比在海洋中更具冥想的感觉。是的，你不需要游得太快，可以慢下来享受当下。直到你迷路，五个半小时过去了，你会感到恐慌，不知道是否能够找到岸边或者重新找到快乐的方向？其实并没有。我是个承受压力能力比较强的人，在那个时刻我并没有惊慌。

And there were worse swims I had that were shorter but involved accidents and you know about some of them. So that wasn't the worst by far. But an important thing about swimming and physical activity in general is that it makes your mind clear and your thinking process is becoming more efficient. Because at the end of the day, the efficiency of our brain is limited by how much sugar and oxygen of heart can push through blood to our brain. How can you make this go faster? Or how do you make your lungs more efficient? How do you make your heart more efficient in doing that? The physical activity is the only way.

翻译成中文如下：我曾经经历过更糟糕的游泳，那些虽然距离较短，但都发生过事故，你也知道其中的一些。所以这次绝对算不上是最糟糕的。但游泳和体育活动的重要性在于，它能让你的思维变得清晰，提高你的思考效率。因为说到底，我们大脑的效率取决于心脏通过血液输送到大脑的糖和氧气的多少。如何加快这个过程？如何让你的肺功能更高效？如何让你的心脏在这方面变得更高效？唯一的方法就是进行体育锻炼。

I know of. So it's not just staying healthy or trying to look good. It's also being productive. It's also being stress-resilient. All of this quality is unnecessary. If you want to run a large company, if you want to start a company, I'm surprised when I started doing this more than 10 years ago that more CEOs didn't engage in sports. The situation changed in the last several years which is great because back in the day, if you take 20 years ago, there was this stereotype that if you're strong, it must be not very smart and vice versa, which is a complete lunacy.

我知道的情况。保持健康或单纯为了好看都不仅仅是目的。还要提高效率，增强抗压能力。这些品质是必不可少的。如果你想经营一家公司或创建一家企业，我很惊讶在十多年前开始关注这些时，竟然很少有CEO参与体育运动。但情况在过去几年发生了变化，这很好。因为在20年前，有一种刻板印象认为肌肉发达的人智商不高，反之亦然，但这完全是无稽之谈。

Very often, these two things go together. So for you working on as not just posting healthy, it's actually valuable for the work that you do as a tech leader, as an engineer, as a technologist. Oh yes. When I can't train, I can instantly feel that stress is creeping on me. So even in situations when I am constrained, I can't go to gym. I would just keep doing pushups. I just keep doing squats. Yeah. I mean, that's the cool thing about body weight exercise. You just do it anywhere. You can just pop off 50 or 100 pushups before meeting.

通常，这两件事情会同时发生。因此，对你来说，保持健康不仅仅是做个帖子展示，而是对你作为一个科技领导者、工程师或技术专家的工作有价值的。是的，当我不能锻炼的时候，我能立刻感到压力正在逼近。所以即使在我无法去健身房的情况下，我也会坚持做俯卧撑或深蹲。是啊，这就是自重锻炼的好处，你可以随时随地进行。在开会前，你可以随便做上五十个或一百个俯卧撑。

I don't don't you feel weird when you have a day without physical activity. Yeah. If I go a day without doing pushups at the very minimum, that's a shitty day. And if you can do pull ups, it's even better. Yeah. I got to ask you about your diet too. No processed sugar, no fast food, no soda, intermittent fasting, sometimes once a day, only sometimes a couple of times a day. So take me to your philosophy on the no sugar, no, no soda, just clean food.

你是不是也觉得如果有一天没有进行体育锻炼就会感觉很奇怪？是啊，如果有一天连最起码的俯卧撑都没做，那真是糟糕的一天。如果还能做引体向上就更好了。对了，我还想问问你的饮食习惯：不吃加工糖、不吃快餐、不喝汽水，偶尔进行间歇性禁食，有时一天只吃一次，有时一天吃几次。能跟我讲讲你对不吃糖、不喝汽水、只吃健康食物的看法吗？

Well sugar is pretty easy because it's addictive. The more you consume sugar, the more you want it, the hungrier you get. So if you want to stay efficient and healthy, why consume processed sugar? It will just end up snacking all the time. Intermittent fasting, so eating only within six hours and not eating for 18 hours every day, also brings structure into your day and into your eating habits. So you don't create sugar anymore. Because you know if you eat sugar and then you're unable to snack, you're just punishing yourself.

糖很容易让人上瘾。你吃得越多，就越想吃，而且会越来越饿。所以，如果你想保持高效和健康，为什么要摄入加工糖呢？这样只会使你不停地吃零食。间歇性禁食，即每天只在六小时内进食，其他十八小时不吃东西，这也能给你的一天和饮食习惯带来结构化的安排。这样你就不再制造糖分依赖了。因为你知道，如果你吃了糖却无法再吃零食，实际上是对自己的惩罚。

I read a few books on longevity. I think something everybody agrees on is that sugar is harmful. No, I'm not militant about sugar. You can eat berries fruit if you feel you bite, you need it. But it's not true to think it's necessary to consume with things, not for children, not for adults. Red meat, I stopped eating it about 20 years ago because I just felt heavy every time I had it. So I guess it's individuals. My metabolism, my digestive system isn't agreeing with this kind of food. So I normally eat seafood of all kinds and vegetables. This is the basic source of calories for me.

我读了一些关于长寿的书。我认为大家都同意糖有害。不过，我并不对糖特别排斥。如果你觉得需要，可以吃一点浆果类水果。但并不是说糖是必需的，无论是对孩子还是成年人来说都不是。我大约在20年前就不再吃红肉了，因为每次吃完我都感到沉重。我想这主要取决于个人吧，我的代谢和消化系统好像不太适应这种食物。所以我通常都吃各种海鲜和蔬菜，这就是我主要的热量来源。

Yeah, and like all things you said short-term pleasure isn't worth your future. So a lot of things we all know that alcohol is destructive to the body, tobacco, pills, processed food, sugar. But society puts that on you. It makes it very difficult to avoid. So I guess it all boils down to the discipline. Yes. And trying to identify the real cause of an issue you're experiencing. If you experiencing a headache, one solution would be to take a pill and then the headache disappears. What this pill would actually do in most cases, it would mute the consequence.

是的，就像你说的，短期的快乐不值得牺牲你的未来。我们都知道，酒精对身体有害，香烟、药片、加工食品、糖也是如此。但社会总是把这些东西推向你，让你很难避免。所以归根结底还是要靠自律。而且要尽量找出你所经历的问题的真正原因。比如，如果你感到头痛，一个解决办法是吃药，这样头痛就会消失。但在大多数情况下，这种药只是掩盖了症状。

You feel enough pain. It's a pain killer. It will not eliminate the root cause. So you have to ask yourself, what is it that is causing this headache? Do I need to drink some water? Is the air quality here bad? Do I need to start getting more sleep? Is there something wrong with people around me? They're stressing me out. There must be some reason why you experience a headache. But if you take a pill, you're not removing this reason. You're actually making it worse. Because this harmful factor is still there.

你感觉到足够的疼痛。这是止痛药，但它不会消除根本原因。所以你得问自己，这头痛到底是因为什么引起的？我需要喝点水吗？这里的空气质量不好吗？我需要多睡点觉吗？周围的人有什么问题吗？他们让我感到压力。你头痛肯定是有原因的。但是如果你吃了一片药，你并没有去除这个原因。其实你是在让它变得更糟，因为导致疼痛的不利因素仍然存在。

It's like you were piloting a helicopter. And there's some red signals and red lamps start to blink and it starts producing bad unpleasant noise. What would you do? You would try to figure out the cause and eliminate it. Maybe there is some mounting next to you and you have to avoid it. Or you take a hammer and smash the signal. I think the good answer is quite obvious. So why are we constantly doing this regardless? Oh, because everybody else is doing it. Because there's a whole industry trying to persuade you that this is the right thing to do.

这就好比你正在驾驶一架直升机，突然出现了一些红色信号灯开始闪烁，并且发出刺耳的噪音。你会怎么做呢？你会试图找出原因并解决问题。也许旁边有座山，你需要避开。或者你拿起锤子敲掉那个信号。我想正确的选择显而易见。那么，为什么我们还总是这样做呢？哦，因为其他人都这样做。因为有整个行业在试图说服你这是正确的做法。

So it's incredibly important to analyze yourself and try to get to the bottom of things. So you generally try to avoid all pills, all pharmaceutical products. Yes, I've been staying away from all of that since I became an adult. When you're a teenager, your mom would typically say, we need to take this pill, otherwise the world collapses. Once I became a grown-up, I said, no, I don't think that the producers of pill are incentivized in the right way.

所以，分析自己并努力探究事情的本质是非常重要的。通常，你会尽量避免服用所有药物和药品。是的，自从成年以来，我一直远离这些东西。小时候，我妈妈总会说，我们需要吃这个药，否则世界就会崩溃。但长大后，我认为那些生产药物的人可能没有得到适当的激励。

They are not really interested in eliminating the root of the problem. They would rather have me dependent on the pills they're producing so that I could buy them forever. Then I also realized, no, I'm not saying that you should never take pills. There are obviously some diseases that you can only fight with antibiotics, for example. So I'm not suggesting we go back to the middle ages. But what I'm saying is we overuse pills.

他们并不是真的想消除问题的根源。他们更希望我依赖于他们生产的药片，这样我就可以一直购买它们。同时，我也意识到，我并不是说你永远不该吃药。有些疾病显然只能用抗生素来治疗。我的意思不是我们应该回到中世纪。但我要表达的是，我们过度使用药物。

Yes, it's always good to study, deeply understand the incentives under which the world operates so that you don't get swept up into the forces that operate under these incentives. And big pharma is certainly one of them. Pharmaceutical companies have a huge incentive to keep the problem going versus solving the problem. That's wise. This is something I practice every day. I read some piece of news and ask myself, who benefits from me reading this?

是的，深入研究和理解这个世界运作的动机总是有好处的，这样你就不会被这些动机下运作的力量裹挟。其中，制药行业就是一个典型例子。制药公司有强大的动力去维持问题的存在，而非解决问题。这是很有见地的。我每天都会这样做：读一则新闻，然后问自己，谁从我读这则新闻中受益？

Then you can end up coming to this conclusion that maybe 95% of things we've read in the news have been written and published because somebody wanted you to buy some product, support some political clause, fight some war, donate some money. This does something that would benefit other people. And this is not a problem to support causes that you truly believe in as long as it was your intentional choice. And you're not being manipulated into fighting other people's wars. And that takes us back to the original thing we started talking about, which is freedom. One of the ways to achieve freedom of thought is to remove your mind from the influences, the forces that manipulate you. That's really important to realize. The content you consume, especially on the internet, when a large percentage of it is designed to manipulate your mind you have to disconnect yourself. It would be very proactive understanding what the biases, what the incentives are, so you can think clearly independently and objectively.

那么，你可能会得出这样的结论：我们在新闻中读到的内容中，可能有95%都是因为某些人希望你购买某种产品、支持某个政治立场、参与某场战争或捐款而被撰写和发布的。这些事情会让其他人受益。支持那些你真正相信的事业并不是问题，只要这是你有意做出的选择，而不是被操控去为别人斗争。这让我们回到最初讨论的话题，也就是自由。实现思想自由的一个方法是使你的思维远离那些操控你的影响力和力量。这一点非常重要，因为你需要认识到你所消费的内容，尤其是在互联网上的内容，其中很大一部分是为了操控你的思维而设计的。因此，你必须与之保持距离，积极了解那些偏见和动机，这样你才能独立、客观地清晰思考。

And again, it ties back with restraint from alcohol. Because if you mind this clouded, how can you analyze yourself? You'll always be dependent on opinions of others. You will always follow the mainstream. And whatever the authorities or whoever in charge will tell you, you'll believe it. Because you don't have a tool of your own to rely on to come to your own conclusions. I have to ask you, this is something that came up, you don't watch porn. I don't think I've heard you talk about this before. What's the philosophy behind not watching porn? There's a lot of people that talk about porn in general having a very negative effect on young men on their view of the world, on their development of their sexuality and how they get into relationships and all that kind of stuff. So what's your philosophy in not consuming porn?

这段文字的中文翻译如下：再次强调，这与戒酒有关。如果你的思想被蒙蔽了，如何分析自己呢？你将总是依赖他人的意见，总是追随主流。不管权威或负责的人告诉你什么，你都会相信。因为你缺乏一种独立得出的工具。所以我要问你，这个问题浮现出来，你不看色情影片。我想我以前没听你谈到过这个问题。不看色情影片的理念是什么？很多人谈到色情影片一般对年轻男性在世界观、性发展以及如何处理关系等方面有非常负面影响。那么你不看色情影片的理念是什么呢？

I don't watch porn because I just feel it's a surrogate, a substitute for a real thing that is not necessary in my life. If anything, it just forces you to exchange some energy, some inspiration to a fleeting moment of pleasure. It doesn't make sense. And in any case, as I said, it's not the real thing. So as long as you can access the real thing, you don't need to watch porn. But then if you can't access the real thing, you shoot into watch porn as well. Because it means there's some deficiency in your life, some problem that you have to overcome. Yeah, analyze the underlying cause. And again, this goes back to the theme of investing in a long-term flourishing versus short-term pleasure. There's a theme to the way you approach life. I try to be strategic. I try to act under assumption that I'm not going to die in one hour from now.

我不看色情影片，因为我觉得它只是一个替代品，是生活中不必要的东西。它只是在用一时的快感换取你的精力和灵感，这样做不值得。而且，正如我所说，它不是真实的东西。所以，只要你能够接触到真实的体验，就不需要看色情影片。但如果你无法获得真实的体验，你也不应该看色情影片。这意味着你的生活中存在一些缺失或问题需要解决。分析一下底层原因。这又回到了投资于长期成长而非短期快感的主题。这涉及到你处理生活的方式。我试图有策略地生活，我不会假设我会在一小时内死去。

And I'm going to stick around for a bit. Despite the fact that we are all mortal. So why would I exchange the mid and long term for the short term? Doesn't make any sense. Quick pause, bathroom break. Yeah, let's take a break. All right, we took a break and now we're back. I got to ask you about telegram the company. I got to meet some of the brilliant engineers that work there. Telegram runs lean relative to other technology companies that achieve the scale that telegram does. It has very few employees. So how many people are on the core team?

好的，我会继续待一会儿。尽管我们都是凡人，但为什么我要为了短期利益而放弃中长期计划呢？这完全没有道理。稍微暂停一下，去个洗手间。好，我们休息了一下，现在回来了。我想问你关于Telegram公司的事情。我见过一些在那里工作的出色工程师。和达到同样规模的其他科技公司相比，Telegram的运作非常精简，员工很少。那么，核心团队有多少人呢？

Let's say the core engineering team. The core engineering team is about 40 people. This includes the company's backhand, frontend, designers, system administrators. Can you speak to the philosophy behind a company with so few employees? Well, what we realized really early is that quantity of employees doesn't translate to the quality of the product they produce. In many cases, it's the opposite. If you have too many people, they have to coordinate the efforts constantly communicate. And 90% of their time will be spent on coordinated the small pieces of work they're responsible for between each other.

好，假设我们说的是核心工程团队。核心工程团队大约有40人，包括公司的后端、前端、设计师和系统管理员。能谈谈为什么公司员工这么少的理念吗？我们很早就意识到，员工的数量并不等于他们所产出的产品质量。在很多情况下，事实正好相反。如果员工太多，他们需要不断协调努力和沟通，他们90%的时间会花在彼此间协调他们各自负责的小部分工作上。

The other problem with having too many employees is that some of them won't get enough work to do. And if they don't get enough work to do, they demotivate everybody else by their mere existence. They're still there. They're still getting the salary, but they don't do anything. And if they don't do anything more often than not, they will start trying to find their purpose elsewhere, maybe inside your team, but not by doing productive work, but by finding problems that don't exist within the team. And they can disrupt the team and the mood inside it even further. Also, when you intentionally don't allow some of your team members to hire more people to help them, they will be forced to automate things.

另一个问题是，如果员工人数过多，其中一些人可能没有足够的事情做。而如果他们没有足够的工作，这些人的存在就会让其他员工的积极性下降。他们还在公司，他们依然拿工资，但却没有做什么事情。而当他们经常闲着无事可做时，他们可能会开始在其他地方寻找目标，可能会在团队内部，但不是通过做有生产力的工作，而是通过在团队中发现本不存在的问题。这会进一步破坏团队的氛围。此外，当你故意不让团队中的某些成员招聘更多的人手来协助工作时，他们就会被迫去自动化一些流程。

In our case, we have tens of thousands of servers around the world, almost a hundred thousand, distributed across several continents and data centers. If you try to manage this system manually without automation, you will probably end up hiring thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, but if you rely on algorithms and the team is forced to put together algorithms in order to manage it, then it becomes much more scalable, much more efficient, and interestingly much more reliable as well. And more resilient to the changing geopolitics, the changing technology, all of that. Because if you automate the distributed aspect of the data storage and all the compute, then that's going to be resilient to everything in the world that throws at you.

在我们的情况下，我们在全球拥有成千上万的服务器，接近十万台，分布在多个大洲和数据中心。如果你试图手动管理这个系统而不进行自动化，你可能需要雇佣数千甚至上万的人。但是，如果依靠算法，并且团队被迫一起制定算法来管理，那么这个系统就会变得更加可扩展，更加高效，并且有趣的是，更加可靠。而且它还能更好地适应不断变化的地缘政治和技术变化。因为如果你将数据存储和所有计算的分布式部分自动化，那就能抵御世界上可能抛给你的所有挑战。

I suppose if you have people managing all of it, it becomes stale quickly. Yes, humans are attack factors. And if you have a distributed system that runs itself automatically, you have a chance at increasing the security of speed and speed of your service. This is what we did with Telegram, while also making it much more reliable, because if some part of the network goes down, you can still switch to the other parts of it. One of the big ways you protect your privacy is that you store the data, the infrastructure side of Telegram is distributed across many legal jurisdictions with the decryption keys. So the encrypted in the cloud, the decryption keys are split and kept in different locations so that no single government or entity can access the data.

我想，如果所有事情都由人来管理，那很快就会变得疲软缺乏活力。是的，人是潜在的攻击因素。如果你有一个自动运行的分布式系统，你就有机会提高服务的安全性和速度。这就是我们在 Telegram 上所做的，同时还提高了可靠性。因为即使网络的某一个部分发生故障，你仍然可以切换到其他部分。保护隐私的一大方法是将数据存储在多个法律辖区的基础设施中，并且解密密钥分开存放在不同地点，这样任何单一政府或实体都无法访问这些数据。

Can you explain the strength of this approach? The way we designed Telegram is we never wanted to have any humans, any employees have any access to private messaging data. That's why since 2012, when we've been trying to come up with this design, we've always invested a lot of effort into making sure that no one can mess with it. If you hire an employee or any of the existing employees, he can't break this system in a way that would allow them to access messages of users. And then of course, we launched into an encrypted messaging that is even more protected, but it has certain limitations, so you still have to rely on an encrypted cloud. So an interesting engineering challenge was how you make sure that no point of failure can be created within your team or outside. So no employee can even access user messages.

你能解释一下这种方法的优点吗？我们设计Telegram时的初衷是确保没有任何人，包括员工，能够访问私人消息数据。从2012年开始，我们就在努力设计这种系统，我们始终投入大量精力，确保没有人能破坏它。即便是新雇员或者现有员工也无法破坏系统，从而访问用户的消息。当然，我们推出了加密消息服务，保护性更强，但也有一些限制，因此依然需要依赖加密云。一个有趣的工程挑战是如何确保在团队内部或外部都不会出现任何故障点，这样就没有员工能够访问用户的消息。

So that's the thing. You know we talked about encryption, we talked about privacy, we talked about security, all these kinds of things. I think the number one thing that people are concerned about, about which there's also misinformation is about private messages. So Telegram is very, very protective of the private messages of users. So you're saying employees never can access the private messages. Have any governments or intelligence agencies ever accessed private user messages in the past? No, never. Telegram has never shared a single private message with anyone, including governments and intelligence services. If you try to access any server in any of the data center locations, it's all encrypted. You can extract all the hard drives and analyze it, but you won't get anything. It's so encrypted in the way that it's unsightful. That was very important for us.

所以是这样的。你知道我们之前谈过加密、隐私和安全这些事情。我认为人们最关心的一个问题是关于私人信息，而这方面也存在误传。Telegram对于用户的私人信息保护得非常好。你问员工是否永远无法访问私人信息。有没有政府或情报机构曾经访问过用户的私人信息呢？没有，从来没有。Telegram从未与任何人分享过一条私人信息，包括政府和情报机构。如果你试图访问任何数据中心的服务器，所有内容都是加密的。你可以提取所有硬盘并分析它，但你什么也得不到。这个加密程度让数据无法查看。这对我们来说非常重要。

That's why we can say with confidence that hasn't been ever a leakage of data, any leak of data from Telegram, not in terms of private messages, not in terms of say contact lists. Do you see in the future a possible scenario where you might share user private messages with governments or with intelligence agencies? No. We design a system in a way that's impossible. We do require us to change the system and we won't do that because we made a promise to our users. We would draw that shut Telegram down in a certain country. Then do that. That's one of the principles you operate on. As you go into protect user privacy. I think it's fundamental. Without the right to privacy, people can't feel fully free and protected.

这就是为什么我们可以自信地说，Telegram从未发生过数据泄露，无论是私人消息还是联系人列表。你认为将来是否可能出现与政府或情报机构共享用户私人消息的情景？不会。我们的系统设计方式确保这是不可能的。要做到那一点，我们需要改变整个系统，而我们不会那样做，因为我们对用户做出了承诺。我们宁愿在某个国家关闭Telegram，也不愿那样做。这是我们遵循的原则之一，因为我们致力于保护用户的隐私。我认为这是基本的，没有隐私权，人们就无法感到完全自由和安全。

This is a good place to ask. I'm sure you're pressured by all kinds of people, all kinds of organizations to share private data. What do you find the strength and fearlessness to say no to everybody, including powerful intelligence agencies, including powerful governments, influential powerful people? I guess part of it is just me being me. I stood up for myself and for my value since I was a little kid. I had issues with my teachers because I would point out their mistakes during classes. At the end of the day, what's important is to remind yourself that you have nothing to lose. They can think they're blackmailing you with something, they can threaten you with something. What is it they really can really do to you?

这是个好地方来问这个问题。我相信你一定承受着各种各样的人和组织的压力，要求你分享私人数据。你是如何找到力量和勇气来对所有人说不的，包括强大的情报机构、政府，以及有影响力的人？我想部分原因是因为我就是我。从小我就勇于为自己和自己的价值观站出来。我小时候因为在课堂上指出老师的错误而与他们产生过摩擦。最重要的是，提醒自己你没有什么可失去的。他们可能认为可以用某些东西来威胁你，但他们真的能对你做什么呢？

Like worst case, they can kill you. That brings us back to the first part of our discussion. There is no point living your life in fear. As for Telegram, it's incredibly successful. If we lose one market or two markets, or pretty much all of the markets, I don't care that much. You won't affect me. You won't affect my lifestyle in any way. I will still be doing my push ups. You don't like encryption. You don't like privacy. You think you should ban encryption in your country. Like the European Union is trying to do now for all the member states. Well, go ahead and do that. We'll just quit this market. We won't operate there. It's not that important. They all think that somehow we profit from their citizens. The only goal that companies have is extracting revenues. It's true. Most of the companies like this, but there are projects like Telegram, which are different. I'm not sure they realize that.

最坏的情况是，他们可以杀了你。这把我们带回到讨论的第一部分。生活在恐惧中是没有意义的。关于Telegram，它是一个非常成功的平台。如果我们失去一个或两个市场，甚至几乎所有市场，我也无所谓。这不会影响我，也不会影响我的生活方式。我依然会做俯卧撑。你不喜欢加密技术，不喜欢隐私保护，认为应该在你的国家禁止加密技术。就像欧盟现在正试图对所有成员国实施一样。那么就去做吧。我们就退出这个市场，不在那里运营。这并不那么重要。他们都以为我们从他们的公民那里获利。的确，大多数公司都是为了赚取收入，但也有像Telegram这样的项目是不同的。我不确定他们是否意识到了这一点。

For you, the value of maintaining your integrity in relation to your principles is more important than anything else. Of course, we should say that you also have full ability and control to do just that because you probably do own 100% of Telegram. So there's no other anybody would say on this question. There are no shareholders, which is quite unique, very unique. I don't think there's anything even close to that in any major tech company. And this allows us to operate the way we operate, to build this project and maintain it based on certain fundamental principles, which by the way, I think everybody believes in. I think the right to privacy is included in the constitution of most countries, at least most Western countries, but it's still under attack almost every week.

对你来说，坚持与自己原则相符的诚信比什么都重要。当然，我们也必须提到，你完全有能力和控制权去做到这一点，因为你很可能100%拥有Telegram。所以在这个问题上，没有别人能提出异议。这种情况相当独特，几乎没有哪家大型科技公司是这样的。这样的结构让我们可以按照自己的方式运营，基于某些基本原则来构建和维护这个项目。顺便说一下，我认为这些原则是大家都相信的。我认为隐私权被纳入大多数国家，至少是大多数西方国家的宪法，但它几乎每周都面临威胁。

And it often starts with well-meaning proposals, or we have to fight crime. We have to do that. We have to protect the children. But at the end of the day, the result is the same. People lose their right to such fundamental thing as privacy. They sometimes lose their right to express themselves to assemble. And this is a slippery slope that we witnessed in pretty much every autocratic country, or country that used to be free and then became autocratic. No dictator in the world ever said, let's just strip you away from your rights, because I want more power to myself and I want you to be miserable. They all justified it with very reasonable sounding justifications. And then it came in stages gradually.

这通常始于一些看似善意的提议，比如我们要打击犯罪，我们必须这样做，我们要保护儿童。然而最终结果却是一样的：人们失去了隐私等基本权利。有时候，他们失去了表达和集会的权利。这是一种滑坡效应，我们在几乎所有专制国家或曾经自由但后来变得专制的国家中都见过。世界上没有哪个独裁者会直说，我要剥夺你的权利，因为我想要更多的权力，并让你痛苦。所有这些都被赋予了非常合理听起来的理由，然后一步步渐进地实施。

And after a few years, people would find themselves in a position when they're helpless. They can't protest. Every message they sent is monitored. They can't assemble. It's over. So you see telegram is a place that people from all walks of life, from every nation can have a place to speak their mind, have a voice. In the context, in the geopolitical context, you're mentioning that governments when they become autocratic, naturally, is the way of the world, human nature and the nature of governments, they become more censorious. They begin to censor. And always justifying it in their minds, perhaps assuming that they're doing good.

几年之后，人们可能会发现自己处于无能为力的境地。他们无法抗议，他们发送的每条信息都受到监控，无法聚集。就这样结束了。因此，你可以看到Telegram是一个人们可以自由表达想法的平台，不论来自哪个国家、哪个阶层的人都可以在这里发声。在你提到的地缘政治背景下，政府一旦变得专制，这是世界自然运转的规律，是人性和政府本性的表现，他们会变得更倾向于审查。他们总是为此找到理由，也许他们认为自己是在做好事。

Perhaps some of them assume they are doing good. But interestingly, it always results in the state accumulating more power at the expense of the individual. And then where does it stop? You know, we humans are not very good at finding the right balance. And in this case, the right balance between chaos and order, between freedom and structure. We tend to go to extremes. I think you still consider yourself a libertarian. There is something about government that always over time naturally builds a larger and larger bureaucracy. And in that machine of bureaucracy, it accumulates more and more power.

也许他们中有些人认为自己是在做好事。但有趣的是，这总是导致国家积累更多的权力，而个人的权利被削弱。那么，这种情况何时会停止呢？你知道的，我们人类并不擅长找到合适的平衡点。在这种情况下，就是在混乱与秩序之间，自由与结构之间找到正确的平衡。我们往往走向极端。我想你仍然把自己看作是一个自由主义者。政府有一种特性，就是随着时间的推移，自然而然地建立起越来越庞大的官僚体系。而在这个官僚机器中，它积累了越来越多的权力。

And it's not always that someone individual member of that bureaucracy is the one that corrupts the initial principles on which the government was founded. But just something over time you forget. You begin to censor. You begin to limit the freedoms of the individual, the ability of the individuals to speak to have a voice to vote. It just gradually happens that way. And the government is not some abstract notion. The government consists of people. And these people have goals. They would naturally be inclined to increase the level of influence, to have more support in it, to have more resources.

并不是总有某个特定的官僚成员腐化了政府创建时所基于的初衷。有时候，随着时间的推移，你可能会逐渐遗忘这些原则。你开始进行审查，开始限制个人的自由，限制个人发声和投票的权利。这些改变就是这样慢慢发生的。政府并不是一个抽象的概念，它是由人组成的。这些人有自己的目标，他们自然倾向于增加自己的影响力，获取更多的支持和资源。

And that's how you end up in an endless loop of you know, ever increasing taxes, ever increasing regulation, which ultimately suffocates free market, free enterprise and free speech. So you do want to have very, very strict limitations on the extent the government can increase its powers at the expense of citizens. Ironically, you don't have those limitations. You're supposed in all countries of which are considered to be free. It's supposed to be the constitution that protects everybody. But interestingly, it doesn't work always this way. They are able to find very tricky phrases in order to cover out exceptions.

这就是为什么你会陷入一个无休止的循环：税收不断增加，监管不断加强，这最终会扼杀自由市场、自由企业和言论自由。因此，你确实需要对政府扩大权力的程度施加非常严格的限制，以免损害公民的利益。讽刺的是，在所有被认为是自由的国家中，这些限制通常并不存在。宪法本应该保护每个人，但有趣的是，事情并不总是按这个方式运作。他们能够找到一些非常复杂的措辞来为例外情况开辟空间。

And then the exception becomes the rule. On this topic, I'd love to talk to you about the recent saga of you being arrested in August of last year in France. I think I should say that it's one of the worst overreaches of power I've seen as applied to a tech leader in recent history in all history. So it's tragic, but I think speaks to the thing that we've been talking about. So maybe you can tell the full saga what happened. You arrived in France.

然后，例外就变成了规则。关于这个话题，我很想和你聊聊去年八月你在法国被捕的事情。我觉得我应该说，这是我所见过的最近历史中，对科技领袖权力滥用最严重的情况之一。这很悲惨，但我认为这也反映了我们一直讨论的问题。所以也许你可以完整地讲述一下这个故事。你到了法国之后发生了什么。

I arrived in France last year in August just for a short, today trip. And then I see a dozen of foreign policemen greeting me and asked me to follow them. They read me a list of something like 15 serious crimes that I'm accused of, which was mind boggling. At first I thought there must be some mistake. Then I realized they're being serious. And they accusing me of all possible crimes that the users of Telegram have allegedly committed with some users. And they think I should be responsible for this.

我去年八月来到法国，只是为了短暂的旅行。但到了那里，我看到十几个外国警察迎接我，并让我跟他们走。他们向我宣读了一份大约有15条严重罪行的清单，还说这些罪名是对我的指控，这让我感到非常震惊。起初，我以为一定是哪里搞错了。然后我意识到他们是在认真的。原来他们指控我所有Telegram用户可能与一些用户犯下的罪行，他们认为我应该对此负责。

Which again, like you said, it's nothing. It's something that never happened in the history of this planet. No country, not even an authoritarian one, did that to any tech leader, at least at this scale. There are good reasons for that because you're sacrificing the big part of your economic growth by sending these kind of messages to the business and tech community. So they put me in a police car and I found myself in police custody. A small room, no windows. Just narrow bed made of concrete. I spent four days there.

这件事情，正如你所说，实际上并没有发生过。这是地球历史上前所未有的事情。即使是一个极权国家，也从未对科技领袖采取如此大规模的行动。这样做的原因很简单，因为通过向商业和科技界传递这样的信息，你是在牺牲经济增长的重要部分。所以他们把我放进警车，我发现自己被警方拘留了。在一个没有窗户的小房间里，只有一张用水泥做的窄床。我在那里待了四天。

In the process, I had to answer some questions of the policemen that were interested in how Telegram operates. Most of it is public anyway and I was struck by very limited understanding, or should I say even lack of understanding, on behalf of the people who initiated this investigation against me, about how technology works, how encryption works, how social media work. I mean, there's something darkly poetic about a tech founder of a platform where a billion people are communicating with each other and you're on concrete, no pillow for days, no windows.

在这个过程中，我不得不回答一些警察的问题，他们对Telegram的运作方式感兴趣。其实大部分信息都是公开的，我感到震惊的是，这些对我发起调查的人对技术、加密和社交媒体的了解非常有限，甚至可以说是非常缺乏。对于一个创建了供十亿人交流的平台的科技创始人来说，却连续几天待在没有枕头、没有窗户的水泥屋里，这其中有一种阴郁的诗意。

It's like a book. I mean, it reminds me. He's fan of Franz Kafka and he's written about the absurdity of these kinds of situations. Hence the Kafka-esque stories. There's a story literally about the situation he wrote, perhaps predicted, called the trial, where a person is arrested for no reason that anybody can explain and is stuck in a judicial system for a long time, that nobody fascinatingly in that story, neither the person arrested nor the any individual member of the system itself fully understand what is happening, nobody can truly answer the questions, and eventually the person spoiler alert is mentally broken by the whole system, which is what bureaucracy can do in its most absurd form, is it breaks the spirit, the human spirit laden in all of us.

这就像一本书。我是说，它让我想起了。他是弗朗茨·卡夫卡的粉丝，并且写过关于这种情境荒诞性的作品。因此有了“卡夫卡式”的故事。在他所写的一篇可能是预见的小说《审判》中，就有一个关于这种情境的故事：一个人莫名其妙被逮捕，被困在一个冗长的司法系统中。在这个故事中，令人着迷的是，无论是被捕者还是这个系统中的任何一个人都没有完全弄明白到底发生了什么，没有人能真正回答所有问题。最后，这个人（剧情透露）被整个系统折磨得精神崩溃，这正是官僚主义在其最荒谬的形式下可能造成的结果，它打击了我们每个人内心中所具备的人类精神。

That's the negative side of bureaucracy. I agree with you on the absurdity of this thing. Because if this was a good faith attempt to fix an issue, there were so many ways to reach out, to telegram to reach out to me personally, voice their concerns and solve any alleged problem in a way that is conventional and diplomatic, the way every other country on this planet solves these problems, including with telegram, we did a dozen sub-times. Yeah, you have a nice page showing, this is kind of like details that most people don't really think about, but telegram is at the forefront of moderating CSAM and terrorist groups.

这是官僚主义的负面影响。我同意你对这件事荒谬性的看法。如果这是一次善意的尝试来解决问题，那其实有很多方法可以用，比如通过电报直接联系我，表达他们的担忧，并以一种传统和外交的方式解决任何所谓的问题，就像这个星球上的每个国家解决这些问题的方式一样，其中包括用电报，我们已经这样做过很多次了。是的，你展示了一些人们通常不太关注的细节，比如电报在打击儿童色情和恐怖组织方面走在前列。

There's a nice page telegram.org slash moderation that shows just the incredible amount of groups and channels that are engaged in terrorist activity and CSAM activity that are blocked, actively blocked, found and blocked by telegram. A lot of this work, like you said, because the automation is done on machine learning, just the scale is insane. This is stuff that most like noobs like me who are just chatting it up on telegram don't think about, but there's just an immense number of people essentially doing things that violate the law on there and you have to find them immediately and catch it.

在telegram.org/moderation这个页面上，可以看到大量参与恐怖活动和CSAM活动的群组和频道被封锁，这些都是由Telegram积极发现和封锁的。正如你所说，这项工作依靠机器学习自动化进行，其规模实在惊人。对于像我这样的普通用户来说，平常在Telegram上聊天时并不会想到这些，但实际上有大量人在平台上从事违法活动，必须立即发现并制止。

I guess all platforms have to deal with it and telegram was doing a great job of dealing with that kind of content and what you're saying is the French government had no idea, they even know what machine learning is. It's a concept that is challenging to explain to them, but I think they will learn much more about it by the end of this investigation. That's my hope. In any case, you're right. If you look at telegram with the fighting harmful content that is publicly distributed on our platform since 10 years ago, actually since the time we launched public channels on telegram.

我想所有平台都必须应对这种情况，而Telegram在处理此类内容方面做得非常出色。你所说的法国政府对此一无所知，他们甚至不了解什么是机器学习。这个概念对他们来说很难解释，但我希望在此次调查结束时，他们会对此有更多了解。无论如何，你是对的。如果你看看Telegram，在对抗公开分发有害内容方面，我们已经努力了十年了，实际上自从我们在Telegram上推出公共频道以来就一直在做这件事。

And since something like eight years ago, we had daily transparency reports on how many channels related to child abuse or terrorist propaganda we've taken down daily. Every day we've taken maybe would take down hundreds of them and if it include all kinds of content that we remove, all the accounts, groups, channels, posts, that would amount to millions of pieces of content every week, hundreds of thousands every day. And then somebody would read the newspaper, get enraged because they would read something about child porn, and this is a subject that is very emotionally charged and start doing something not based on data and logical thinking and laws, but based on emotions driven from inaccurate input.

大约八年前开始，我们每天都会公布关于移除与儿童虐待或恐怖主义宣传相关频道的透明报告。每天我们可能会移除数百个这样的频道，如果算上所有被删除的内容，包括账户、群组、频道、帖子，每周大约有上百万条内容被移除，每天达数十万条。然后，有人阅读报纸后会感到愤怒，因为他们看到有关儿童色情的报道，这是一个感情上很容易被触动的话题，他们往往会因为这些不准确的信息而做出不基于数据、逻辑思考和法律的行动，而是由情绪驱动的。

Yeah, I think it should make pretty clear that there's no world, no reason that the French government should have arrested you, but here we are. That's the situation you're in. So to be clear, you have to show up in front of a judge. All of this is beautifully absurd. It would be hilarious if it wasn't extremely serious. You have to show up in front of a judge every certain amount of time. And what does that experience like? In France, they have this role of investigative judge.

是的，我认为这应该很清楚地表明，根本没有理由也没有任何情况是法国政府应该逮捕你的，但事实就是如此。这就是你现在的处境。需要澄清的是，你必须在特定时间出现在法官面前。这一切都是非常荒谬的。如果不是非常严肃的话，这将是滑稽可笑的。你必须定期出现在法官面前。在法国，他们有一个叫做调查法官的角色。

I don't think you have it in many other places in the world. It means I'm not on trial. I'm being investigated. And in France, it's not just the police or prosecutor asking me questions, it's a judge. Which in my experience is more like still a prosecutor, but it's called a judge. And that makes it harder to appeal. So if you're limited in, say, countries where you can travel, then to appeal that restriction will take you a lot of time. The investigation itself should have never been started. It's an absurd and harmful way of solving an issue as complicated as regulating social media. It's just the wrong tool.

我认为在世界上许多其他地方都没有这样的情况。这意味着我并没有被审判，而是正在接受调查。在法国，不仅仅是警察或检察官在询问我，还有一位法官。根据我的经验，这位法官更像是检察官，但被称为法官。这使得上诉变得更困难。因此，如果你在旅行国家方面受到限制，那么要对这一限制提出上诉会花费你很多时间。这项调查本不应该开始。用这种荒谬且有害的方法来解决像管理社交媒体这样复杂的问题是不合适的。这根本就是用错了工具。

So we objected and appealed the investigation itself. We did last year, I believe. We are still not even given a hearing date for the appeal. Because the process is painful, it's slow, not just for me, but for everybody. Which made me realize the system may be broken in many levels. Other entrepreneurs affected by the French test system tell me horror stories about their experiences. Where businesses got paralyzed by very unnecessary actions of investigative judges that ended up being unjustified and biased.

所以我们对调查本身提出了反对和上诉。我想我们是在去年做的。到现在，我们甚至还没有得到上诉的听证会日期。因为这个过程非常痛苦、缓慢，不仅对我，对所有人都是如此。这让我意识到这个系统可能在很多层面上都是有问题的。其他受到法国审查制度影响的企业家向我讲述了他们的经历，他们的故事简直就是恐怖故事，一些企业因为调查法官非常不必要的行动而陷入瘫痪，而这些行动最终被证明是不合理且带有偏见的。

And then in the end, you can perhaps solve it when you reach a higher court and you'll get justice. But you lose a lot of time and energy in the process. So this is the only thing that is, I hope, different. And will be different in this case compared to the story you told from Kafka. I mean, but it does as Kafka describes, break a lot of people with time. To Wendy Hope, we should say that you were for a long time, not a lot of travel out of France. Now you can travel to Dubai. We're now in Dubai. Got to meet many of the people that work at Telegram. Telegram is headquartered in Dubai.

最后，当你上诉到更高的法庭时，或许能够解决问题，得到公正的裁决。但这个过程中会消耗大量的时间和精力。所以，我希望这点能够有所不同，并且这个案件能不同于你说的卡夫卡的故事。不过正如卡夫卡描述的，时间拖久了确实会击垮很多人。顺便对温迪·霍普说，你很长时间以来都没有怎么离开法国旅行，现在就可以来迪拜了。我们现在在迪拜，见到了很多在Telegram工作的员工。Telegram的总部就在迪拜。

But you're not allowed to travel anywhere else. When do you think you're coming to Texas to hang out with me over there? That's the hard question to answer because it doesn't depend on just my actions. I can just say this, I am patient. I will not let this limitation on my freedom dictate my actions. I will, if anything, double down on defending freedoms because I experienced firsthand what the absence of freedom feels like. Please, during this four days in police custody, we’re in one of your just stuck, unable to communicate with people that are important to you.

但是你不能去其他地方旅行。你觉得什么时候会来德州找我玩呢？这个问题很难回答，因为这不仅取决于我的行动。我只能说，我很有耐心。我不会让这种对我自由的限制决定我的行为。我会更加坚定地捍卫自由，因为我亲身体验过没有自由的感觉。请想象，在我被警方拘留的四天里，你被困在那里，无法与对你重要的人沟通。

When you don't even know what's going on in the world, in relation to you personally. So I have no crystal ball that would tell me the future. I can't say that I am pessimistic. I think we've been able to gradually remove most of the restrictions initially imposed on my freedom. Last August. If the French government or the French intelligence agency want to have a back door or have way to access private user messages, what would you say to them? Is there anything they can do to get access to the private user messages?

当你甚至不知道世界上发生了什么事，并且这些事情与你个人有关时。我没有水晶球来预测未来。我不能说我是悲观的。我认为我们已经能够逐渐取消最初对我自由施加的大多数限制。去年八月。如果法国政府或法国情报机构想要获取一个后门或其他方式来访问私人用户的消息，你会对他们说什么？他们有什么办法可以获得访问私人用户消息的权限吗？

Nothing. My response would be very clear. But it won't be very polite, so I'm not sure it's good to say here. It’s good to say because you're wearing a tie. Yeah, there's a serious adult gentleman like program. Yeah, but there is a concern that people have is when you have so much pressure from governments that over time, they'll wear you down and you'll give in. And then of course, other places use that as a prop. Again, they tried to attack you. You get attacked by every nation. So it's a difficult medium in which to operate.

没有什么。我会很明确地回应。但是，这个回应可能不太礼貌，所以我不确定在这里说是否合适。因为您戴着领带，所以说出来可能还不错。是的，因为这是一个严肃的成年绅士风格的节目。但人们担心的是，当政府施加巨大的压力时，久而久之你可能会妥协。当然，其他地方也会利用这个作为道具。一旦你妥协，其他国家就会攻击你。所以这是一个难以操作的环境。

It's difficult to be you, fighting for freedom, fighting to preserve people's privacy. But is there something you could say to reassure people that you're not going to sacrifice any of the principles that you've just expressed if the French government just keeps wearing you down? I think the French government is losing this battle. This battle is wrong. The more pressure I get, the more resilient and defined I become. And I think I have proven that in the last several months when there were attempts to use my situation, being stuck here in France, by approaching me and asking me to do things in other countries, blocking certain channels, changing the way a telephone works. And not only I refused, I told the world about it. And I'm going to keep telling the world about every instance. Any government in this case, in particular, the French government tries to force me to do anything. And I would rather lose everything I have and yield to this pressure.

要翻译成中文并尽量易读，可以这样表达：做你自己很不容易，为自由而战，为保护人们的隐私而努力。但你能不能说点什么，让大家放心地知道，即使法国政府不断地给你施压，你也不会放弃你刚刚表达的那些原则？我认为法国政府正在输掉这场战斗。这场战斗是错误的。他们越是给我压力，我就越坚定。这几个月来，有人试图利用我被困在法国的处境来接触我，要求我在其他国家做一些事情，比如封锁某些渠道、改变电话的使用方式。我不仅拒绝了，还将此事公之于众。我会继续向全世界揭露每一个这样的例子。任何政府，在这个例子中，特别是法国政府再试图强迫我做任何事情，我都会反抗。我宁愿失去我拥有的一切，也不会屈服于这种压力。

Because if you submit to this pressure and agree with something that is fundamentally wrong and the file is rights of other people as well, you become broken inside. You become a shell of your former self on a deep biological and spiritual level. So I wouldn't do that. There are probably other people in the world that would consider that. But I don't care. Telegram disappears to something people don't understand, including in this intelligence services or governments. I don't care. I'll be fine. If they put me into prison for 20 years, which let's be clear, it's not something that I think is realistic. But let's just think about it as a hypothetical situation. I would rather starve myself to death and die there, reboot the whole game, then do something stupid.

因为如果你屈服于这种压力并同意那些根本错误的事情，损害了其他人的权利，你的内心就会崩溃。在根本的生理和精神层面上，你会变成过去的“空壳”。所以我不会那样做。世界上可能有其他人会考虑这样，但我不在乎。Telegram可能会变成一些人，包括情报机构或政府无法理解的东西。我不在乎，我会过得好。如果他们把我关进监狱20年，明确地说，这并不现实。但假设这种情况发生，我宁愿在那里饿死，也不愿做傻事，重新开始这一切。

Let me ask you about an example of the thing you're talking about. Tell the saga of Telegram in the Romanian election. So I missed all this. You are still fighting to preserve the freedom of speech. What happened? And what were some of the decisions you had to make? So when I got stuck in France, I'm able to leave the country for a few months. I was offered to meet the head of state foreign intelligence services through a person I know quite well. It's actually a well-known tech entrepreneur in France and he's well-connected. And he said, this guy wants to meet you. I said, okay, fine. Let's do that. But I'm not promising anything.

让我问你一个关于你正在谈论的事情的例子。请讲述Telegram在罗马尼亚选举中的故事。我之前错过了这一切。你仍然在努力维护言论自由。发生了什么？你做了哪些决策？当我被困在法国时，我有几个月不能离开这个国家。通过我认识的一位很熟的朋友，我有机会见到国家对外情报部门的负责人。他实际上是一位在法国很知名的科技企业家，关系广泛。他说，这位负责人想见我。我说，好吧，那就见见吧，但我不保证任何事情。

I took the meeting and in this meeting, I was asked to restrict what I see as restriction of freedom of speech in Romania. I don't know if you followed the whole saga with the Romanian elections. They had a presidential elections last year. The results got cancelled. Now Romania at that point when I had this meeting was preparing for a new presidential elections, the conservative candidate was not somebody who the French government was supportive of. So they asked me whether I would be shutting down or ready to shut down channels on Telegram that supported the conservative candidate or protest against the pro-European candidates.

我参加了这个会议，在会议上，我被要求对我认为是罗马尼亚言论自由的限制进行限制。我不知道你是否关注了罗马尼亚选举的整个事件。去年他们进行了总统选举，结果被取消了。当我参加这个会议时，罗马尼亚正在为新的总统选举做准备，保守派候选人并不受法国政府的支持。因此，他们问我是否会关闭或者愿意关闭那些在Telegram上支持保守派候选人或反对亲欧候选人的频道。

So they called the guy they liked. I said, look, if there is no violation of the rules of Telegram, we should quite clear. You can't go to violence. But if it's a peaceful demonstration, if it's a peaceful debate, we can't do this. It would be political censorship. We protected freedom of speech in many countries in the world, who are in Asia, in Eastern Europe, in Middle East. We are not going to start engaging in censorship in Europe. No matter who is asking us. I was very clear to the guy who was the head of French intelligence. I said, if you think that because I'm stuck here, you can tell me what to do. You're very wrong. I would rather do the opposite every time.

所以他们联系了他们喜欢的那个人。我说，如果这没有违反Telegram的规则，我们应该很明确。不能诉诸暴力。但如果是和平的示威，或者是和平的辩论，我们不能这样做。这会成为政治审查。我们在世界上许多国家，包括亚洲、东欧、中东，都保护言论自由。我们不会在欧洲开始进行审查。不管是谁要求我们这样做。我非常明确地告诉法国情报局的负责人，如果你觉得因为我被困在这里，你就能告诉我该怎么做，那你就大错特错了。我宁愿每次都做相反的事情。

And in a way, that's what I did. I had a small debate with him about the morality of the whole thing. And then at a certain point, just disclose the content of this entire conversation, because I never signed an ND. I don't ever sign NDAs with any people like that. I want to be able to tell the world what's going on. And that's quite shocking to me that you would have people in the French government trying to get advantage of this situation. Of course, if they had nothing to do with the start of this investigation itself, and use it to reach their political or geopolitical goals.

在某种程度上，这就是我所做的事情。我和他进行了小规模的辩论，讨论了整个事件的道德问题。然后，在某个时刻，我公开了整个对话的内容，因为我从未签过保密协议。我不会和那种人签保密协议。我希望能够向世界揭示正在发生的事情。让我震惊的是，法国政府里的一些人会试图利用这种局势。当然，前提是他们与调查本身的发起无关，但利用它来实现其政治或地缘政治目标。

I consider it an attempt to humiliate myself personally and millions of telegram users collectively. And it's quite strange that the same agency asks us to do certain things in Moldova as well. So even before that, I think, was October or last year or September. I was arrested in Paris in late August. And then again, approached through an intermediary and asked, would you mind taking down some channels in Moldova because there is an election going on and we were afraid they're going to be some interference with the selections. Could you please connect with the representatives of the government of Moldova and take care of it? We said we're happy to take a look at it and see if there is content there that is in violation of our rules. And they sent us a list of channels and bots. Some of them were, so it was a very short list and some of these channels and bots were in violation indeed of our rules and we took them down, only few of them. The rest were okay.

我认为这是一次对我个人和数百万Telegram用户集体的羞辱尝试。而且很奇怪的是，同一个机构还要求我们在摩尔多瓦执行某些事情。在那之前，我想，大概是去年十月或者九月吧，我在八月底被捕于巴黎。随后，我们再次通过一个中间人接洽，对方问我们是否愿意关闭一些在摩尔多瓦的频道，因为当地选举正在进行，他们担心可能会有干扰。能否请你们与摩尔多瓦政府的代表联系并处理此事？我们表示乐意看看是否有内容违反我们的规定。他们给我们发送了一份频道和机器人的名单，其中一些确实违反了我们的规定，我们关停了这些频道和机器人，不过只有少数。其余的则没有问题。

Then they said thank you, I sent us another list of dozens of channels, many, many channels. We looked at these channels, we realized that there is no solid foundation to justify banning them and refuse to do that. But interestingly enough, the French intelligence services that were asking us to do this in Moldova, let me know through their contact that after Telegram banned the few channels that were in violation of our rules in Moldova, they talked to my judge, the investigative judge in this investigation that has been started against me and told the judge good things about me. We have found very confusing and in a way shocking because these two matters have nothing in common. Why would anyone talk to an investigative judge that is trying to find out what a Telegram did a good enough job in removing illegal content in France? What does Moldova have to do with it? I got very suspicious at that moment.

然后他们说谢谢，并让我发送了另一份包含数十个频道的列表，非常多的频道。我们查看了这些频道，发现没有足够的理由禁止它们，因此拒绝了这一请求。但有趣的是，要求我们在摩尔多瓦做这件事的法国情报机构，通过他们的联系人让我知道，在 Telegram 禁止了一些在摩尔多瓦违反我们规则的频道后，他们对我正在接受调查的法官说了些好话。我们感到非常困惑，并在某种程度上感到震惊，因为这两件事情毫无关联。为什么有人会对一个调查法官说 Telegram 在法国删除非法内容的工作做得很好？这和摩尔多瓦有什么关系？那一刻我变得非常怀疑。

Remember, it happened after we blocked a few channels that violated our rules, but before we refused to block a long list of other channels that were completely fine, which is people expressing political views, which I may not agree with, but it's still right to express them. Not extreme views, not views that call to violence. That wasn't extremely alarming. That was a moment when I told myself that there may be more going on here that I initially thought. Initially, I thought that some people are confused about how technology works. After this case in Moldova, I got much more suspicious. By the time that I had intelligent services that made me to ask about Romania to help them silence in conservative voices in Romania, I was already wary of what can be going on next. Yes, so clearly this was a systematic attempt to pressure you to censor political voices that the French government doesn't agree with.

请记住，这件事发生在我们封锁了一些违反规定的频道之后，但在我们拒绝封锁其他大量完全合规的频道之前。这些频道只是在表达政治观点，尽管我可能不同意这些观点，但表达的权利应该被尊重。它们并不是极端的观点，也不是煽动暴力的言论。当时这并没有让我特别震惊，但我意识到这件事可能比我最初想的要复杂。一开始，我认为只是有人对技术的运作有误解。可是，在摩尔多瓦发生的这个事件之后，我变得更加怀疑。当情报部门让我帮助他们在罗马尼亚压制保守派声音时，我已经对接下来可能发生的事情感到警惕。显然，这是一个系统性的企图，施压于你，以审查法国政府不同意的政治声音。

We should say that you're fought for freedom of speech for left-wing groups and right-wing groups. It really doesn't matter. You don't have a political affiliation, political ideology that you fight for. You're creating a platform that, as long as they don't call for violence, allows people from all walks of life, from all ideologies to speak their mind. That's the whole point. It happens to be conservative voices in the Romanian election that the French government want to censor because currently the French government leaves left. If you flip everything around and the government will be right-wing, you'll be fighting for against that share of left-wing voices. You have in the past many times.

我们应该说，你为左翼团体和右翼团体争取言论自由。这确实没有关系。你并没有支持某种特定的政治立场或意识形态。你正在创建一个平台，只要他们不宣扬暴力，就允许来自各个领域、各种意识形态的人表达自己的观点。这就是全部意义所在。在罗马尼亚的选举中，恰好是保守声音遭到法国政府的审查，因为目前法国政府倾向于左翼。如果情况反过来，政府是右翼的，那么你也会为左翼声音而斗争。你过去就已经多次这样做了。

Exactly. Ironically, we received the request from the French police to take down a channel of far-left protesters on Telegram. In France, we refused to do that. We looked at the channel, peaceful protesters. It doesn't matter for us whether we're defending the freedom of speech of people leaning right or leaning left. During COVID, we were protecting activists that were organizing the Black Lives Matter events. The other side, the protest is against lockdowns. We protect everybody as long as they are not crossing the lines and not starting to call to violence or inside damage to public property. It's a fundamental right to assemble. It's interesting that people who haven't had this experience of living in countries that don't have freedoms don't always realize how dangerous it is to gradually compromise your values, your principles, your freedoms, your rights. They don't understand what's at stake.

好的。具有讽刺意味的是，我们收到法国警方的请求，要求我们关闭一个由极左抗议者在Telegram上的频道。在法国，我们拒绝了这个请求。我们查看了该频道，发现是和平抗议者。对我们来说，无论是捍卫右倾还是左倾人士的言论自由都没有区别。在COVID期间，我们保护了组织“黑人的命也是命”事件的活动家。另一方面，抗议活动是反对封锁政策的。我们保护所有人，只要他们不越界，不号召暴力或破坏公共财产。集会是一项基本权利。有趣的是，那些没有经历过生活在没有自由的国家的人，并不总能意识到逐渐妥协自己的价值观、原则、自由和权利有多危险。他们不明白这其中的利害关系。

These things become slippery slope. So you've for many, many years, including currently, have spoken very highly of France. You love French history, French culture. I think this situation, this historic wrong that's been done is input simply is just a gigantic PR mistake for France. There's no entrepreneur that sees that as far as to be the next ball of duof to create the next telegram, sees this and wants to operate in France after seeing this. There is no justification for the arrest. There's a misapplication of the law, all kinds of pressures, all kinds of behavior that seems politically motivated, all that kind of stuff, all the excessive regulation and the bureaucracy. A nightmare for entrepreneurs that dream to create something impactful and positive for the world.

这些事情会成为滑坡效应。因此，多年来，包括现在，你一直对法国评价很高。你热爱法国的历史和文化。不过，我认为这个情况，这个历史性的错误，对于法国来说简直就是一个巨大的公关错误。没有创业者会把法国看作创造下一个热门产品的理想之地。在看到这种情况后，没有人会想在法国经营。对于这次逮捕没有合理的解释。这是一种法律的误用，还有各种压力和看似出于政治动机的行为，诸如此类的情况，以及过多的监管和繁琐的官僚程序。对于那些梦想创造对世界有积极影响事物的企业家来说，这是一场噩梦。

So what do you think needs to be fixed about the French government, the French system and then zooming out because you have to see similar kinds of things in Europe that could enable entrepreneurs that could reverse the trend that we seem to be seeing in Europe as becoming less and less friendly to entrepreneurs. What can be fixed? What should be fixed? I think the European society must decide where they want the ever-increasing public sector to stop increasing. What they think should be the right size of government because today if you take France for example, which is a beautiful country with a lot of talented people, but public expenses are 58% of the country's GDP. It's maybe as much more than in the latest stage of the Soviet Union.

所以，你认为法国政府和法国制度需要做出哪些修正，然后再扩大视野，因为在欧洲范围内你会看到类似的问题，限制了创业者的发挥，似乎欧洲正在变得对创业者越来越不友好。应该修正什么，需要修改什么？我认为，欧洲社会必须决定他们希望公共部门不断扩张的趋势在哪里止步。他们认为政府的合理规模应该是多少，因为以法国为例，它是一个美丽的国家，拥有许多有才华的人，但公共开支占到了国家GDP的58%。这也许比苏联后期的数字还要多。

So you have this disbalance where you have many more people representing the state as opposed to people trying to bring the country's economy forward by creating great products and great companies. The startup field and my field, social media field has been affected by it immensely. There was one great startup in this realm in France in the last 10 years. It was a patient-based social network. It was eventually sold to Snapchat, but before it was not sold, the founder asked me whether he should sell. I told him never sell. You have a great thing going. You have lots of users. You have organic traction in many countries. The first of the kind of this kind success story in France, but then he sold anyway in a couple of weeks.

因此，你会发现这种不平衡局面：代表国家的人员数量远多于那些通过创造优秀产品和公司来推动国家经济发展的人。这种不平衡严重影响了初创领域和我所在的社交媒体领域。过去10年里，法国在这方面只有一个出色的初创公司。它是一个以患者为基础的社交网络。后来被Snapchat收购，但在被收购之前，创始人问我是否应该卖掉。我告诉他，绝不要卖掉。你搞得很好，有很多用户，在多个国家都有自然的吸引力。这是法国在这类领域中第一个成功的案例。但几周之后，他还是卖掉了。

Later I met him. He started doing new thing. I met him and I asked him, I was trying to understand what went wrong. One of the things he told me about is that while he was trying to run his company, competing with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, having all this pressure from investors, trying to hire the best people and persuade them to go to Paris. He did a great job by the way, but while he was trying to do that, he could also attack by some silly investigation, involving the data protection issues, which lasted forever and was gradually sucking blood of his team and his company, constant interrogations, disclosure requests.

后来我遇见了他。他开始做新的事情。我见到他并问了他，想弄清楚问题出在哪里。他告诉我一件事，当时他在经营自己的公司，要与Facebook、Instagram和Snapchat竞争，承受来自投资者的压力，还要努力招聘优秀人才并说服他们去巴黎工作。他做得非常出色，但是在这个过程中，他还遭遇了一些无聊的调查，涉及数据保护问题。这些调查持续了很久，不断消耗着他团队和公司的精力，包括不断的质询和信息披露要求。

This is a young company. It significantly increases the level of stress. At some point, I think the pressure was too much. He decided to sell it. Eventually it turned out that there was no issue. The investigation ended as far as I understand with no charges. But such investigations, they have a price. They have a cost. And unless the society realizes the cost of projects, of companies, of startups that are never created or are sold to the United States at the very early stage or other countries. Resulting and decreased economic growth, things won't change. I think we just talked to a guy a few days ago who left France and started a business here in Dubai.

这是一家年轻的公司，经历了显著的压力增加。在某个时刻，我认为压力过大，他决定将公司出售。最终结果显示并没有什么问题。据我了解，调查结束时并没有提出指控。然而，这样的调查是有代价的。除非社会意识到未能创建或在初期就被出售给美国或其他国家的项目、公司、初创企业的代价所带来的经济增长减缓，否则情况不会改变。我想我们几天前刚和一个从法国来到迪拜创业的人聊过天。

One of the reasons he had to leave France is that the government started an investigation on his company and they frozen his bank accounts and this investigation that involved taxes lasted for many, many years. I believe he said eight years. And at the end of these eight years, the government reached to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong. His good, it's okay. In the meantime, his corporate bank accounts were frozen. His business died. The only reason why he was able to retain sanity is because he moved to Dubai and started a new company which is incredibly successful. And now he's enriching this city which we're in right now with his great ideas and creativity.

他离开法国的原因之一是因为政府开始调查他的公司，并冻结了他的银行账户。这项涉及税务的调查持续了很多年，据我了解，他说有八年之久。在这八年结束时，政府得出结论，认为他并没有违规行为。他很好，一切正常。然而在这期间，他的公司账户被冻结，生意也因此破产。他之所以能保持理智，完全是因为他搬到了迪拜，并创办了一家新的公司，这家公司非常成功。现在，他用他的创意和想法为我们所在的这座城市带来了繁荣。

And by the way, having interacted with him, there's like a fire in his eyes, the human spirit, the fuels entrepreneurship, whatever that is. He doesn't have to do. He's made a lot of money. He probably doesn't do anything but he still wants to create. And that fires what fuels, great nations, build, build, build, build new stuff, expand, all of that and regulation suffocates that. You have to cherish these people.

顺便说一句，与他接触过的人都能感受到他眼中的那团火，那种推动企业家精神的人性光芒。不管那是什么，他已经赚了很多钱，也许什么都不做也可以。但他仍然想要创造。而这种激情正是推动伟大国家不断建设、创新和发展的动力，而过多的规章制度会扼杀这种激情。我们应该珍惜这样的人。

Yeah. But I guess the French public was some part of the French public was misled and I don't know when, maybe perhaps since the time of the French Revolution, to believe that entrepreneurs as somehow their enemies, the evil rich people that are the cause of all problems, if only you could make the rich share their ill-gotten wealth with the rest of the population, then every problem will be magically solved. In reality, there are a lot of these people that are starting such companies with fire in their eyes, as sacrificing their lives, the livelihood, their work in 20 hours a day, their experiencing immense stress in order to fulfill the vision and bring value and good to the society around them.

是的，不过我想法国公众中的一部分人可能被误导了。我不确定是从什么时候开始的，也许可以追溯到法国大革命时期，他们被引导去认为企业家是他们的敌人，是那些引发一切问题的“邪恶富人”。他们相信，只要让富人将不义之财分给其他人，所有问题就会神奇地解决。事实上，有很多人满怀激情地创办公司，他们牺牲自己的生活、谋生手段，每天工作20个小时，承受着巨大的压力，以实现自己的愿景，并为社会带来价值和利益。

They create jobs, they create great services, they create great goods, they make your country grow, they make your people proud, you have to cherish them. But what does the system do to them? It squeezes them out because perhaps there was somebody in the tax authority that decided to advance their career and perhaps was too ambitious and not too smart. So as a result, the company was destroyed.

他们创造就业机会，提供优质服务和优秀产品，使国家发展，让人民自豪，我们应该珍视他们。但是，制度对他们做了什么呢？制度把他们挤压出去，因为可能有税务部门的人为了晋升而过于野心勃勃，却不够聪明。结果，公司被摧毁了。

And now the same entrepreneur, by the way, who we talked to, is invited to come back to France. He's been offered really good terms. He said he's going to open this new venue on chance that he's there. We're going to give you the best location. We're going to find part of it. Tax breaks and he said never, just forget about this. It's impossible. I'm not coming back to France. He's traumatized by the experience and he's French. He was born there. He's a French passport. On the list, things like this change, France will and the rest of Europe will keep struggling with economic growth, with budget deficits, with unemployment and all the other relevant social and economic and health.

我们之前谈到的那位企业家现在又被邀请回到法国。他们为他提供了非常优厚的条件。他说，如果他在那儿开新的场馆，他们会给他提供最好的位置，提供部分资金支持，还有税收优惠。但他断然拒绝，说这种事情不可能，他不会回法国。他对过去的经历感到创伤，而他本身就是法国人，出生在法国，持有法国护照。除非这些事情改变，否则法国和其他欧洲国家将继续面临经济增长困难、预算赤字、失业，以及其他相关的社会、经济和健康问题。

It's heartbreaking. Many of these nations appreciate the historic and cultural value. I hope Europe and France flourish, but this is not the components that are required for flourishing. Quick pause. I need a bathroom break. We had some tea. We're back. Let's go back a bunch of years to the beginning.

这太让人心碎了。许多国家都非常珍视历史和文化的价值。我希望欧洲和法国能够繁荣发展，但这并不是繁荣所需的要素。稍等一下，我需要去趟洗手间。我们刚喝了些茶。我们回来了。让我们回到很多年前，从头开始吧。

You mentioned you went to school with super intensive education. I thought it would be really interesting to look at some of the powerful aspects of that education, from the languages to the math. Can you actually describe some of the rigorous aspects of it and what you gained from it? The age of 11, I got the opportunity to enter an experimental school in St. Petersburg where I lived and we had to pass the rigorous test to get accepted.

你提到你曾接受过超级密集的教育。我认为从语言到数学，这种教育中的某些强大方面会很有趣。你能描述一些严格的方面吗？你从中获得了什么？在我11岁的时候，我有机会进入我所在的圣彼得堡的一所实验学校，我们需要通过严格的考试才能被接收。

The idea behind the school was that if you try to squeeze as much information as possible into a brain of a teenager, making a focus on maths and foreign languages, then there will be some changes in the brain of the student that will allow the student to understand most other disciplines. But we had a class as a result that didn't have any single focus. It was very widespread across a lot of disciplines. You would have four foreign languages at least, including Latin, English, French, German. In addition, you could get ancient Greek. You would have classes like biochemistry or psychoanalysis of evolution psychology.

学校的理念是，如果你尽量将尽可能多的信息灌输给青少年的大脑，尤其集中在数学和外语方面，那么学生的大脑就会发生一些改变，从而能够理解大多数其他学科。但实际上，我们的课程并没有单一的侧重。课程内容非常广泛，涉及很多学科。你至少要学四门外语，包括拉丁语、英语、法语和德语。此外，你还可以学习古希腊语。同时，你的课程中还包括生物化学或进化心理学的精神分析等科目。

The difference of this class is opposed to other classes in the same school which was part of the St. Petersburg State University. The school like a German gymnasium was that unlike other classes which were specialized in some single subject like physics, or maths, or history. This one tried to get the best from all of the specialized classes and bring it into one curriculum. Since it was an experimental class, it wasn't possible to become a straight-A student to be excellent in all the subjects.

这个班级的不同之处在于，它与同属圣彼得堡国立大学的其他班级有所区别。这个学校有点像德国的文理中学，不同于那些专注于单一学科，比如物理、数学或历史的班级。这个班级尝试从所有这些专业化的课程中提取精华，整合到一个课程中。由于这是一个实验性质的班级，要在所有学科上都拿到优秀成绩几乎是不可能的。

It was considered crazy to even try. So to assume nobody is able to handle it, you're just pushing the limits of the human mind for languages in parallel, math, evolution psychology, just overwhelming. The mind is what happens. Yes, see what happens. It was an experiment. It wasn't the middle of the 90s. Remember when Russia, particularly its educational system, wasn't regulated as much as it is today. It was in the middle between the two stages of the Russian history, the Soviets' history and the modern Russian history of the 23rd century.

要尝试这件事被认为是疯狂的。因此，如果你假设没有人能够应对，就等于是在挑战人类在语言、数学、进化心理学等领域的极限，实在是令人难以承受。这一切都是关于思维的。是的，看看会发生什么。这是一个实验。这不是在90年代中期。记得当时的俄罗斯，特别是它的教育体系，还没有像今天这样受到严格的监管。那是处于俄罗斯历史两个阶段之间的中期，一个是苏联时期，另一个是23世纪的现代俄罗斯历史。

In any case, I learned a lot from that experience. First of all, why I got into the schools because I kept being kicked out from other schools. Challenging authority. I was good at all subjects, but not behavior. We had this behavior grade in the Soviet Union in the early 90s. Perhaps they even have it today. I was very bad at behavior. Always challenging the teachers, always pointing out their mistakes. By the way, that's not such a bad thing. If you were looking back, there's some value to that. For young people, maybe respectfully, but challenge the authority the wisdom of all. I think I was very lucky to be able to do that and to be able to get away with it in the end. Because normally, if you keep challenging authorities, you just get kicked out of all schools and then you end up nowhere.

无论如何，我从那次经历中学到了很多。首先，我之所以进入那些学校，是因为我不断被其他学校开除。我总是挑战权威。我的各科成绩都很好，但行为不好。在上世纪90年代初的苏联，我们有行为评分，可能现在还有。我在行为方面表现很差，总是挑战老师，总指出他们的错误。顺便说一下，这不见得是坏事。回头看，这种行为有其价值。对于年轻人来说，也许需要尊重，但挑战权威与传统智慧是有益的。我觉得我很幸运，能这样做而最终还能安然无恙。因为通常来说，如果你一直挑战权威，就会被所有学校开除，那样就很难有出路。

I eventually got into a school where challenging teachers was not fully okay, but it was something that you could do and then you would start a debate with the teacher. Normally, they would allow you to express your point of view and then some objective truth may come out of it as a result. But at that point, I was pretty bored with my life. Every teenager gets to a point when they have this sort of existential crisis, was the point of life. What am I even doing here? At some point, I decided, since I have to go to school anyway, I might as well try to do something impossible and become the best students and get an A or what we call five in the Russian system on every single subject. And that kept me busy for a while.

我最后进入了一所学校，在那里挑战老师虽然不完全被认可，但你可以这么做，并且这样会引发与老师的辩论。通常情况下，他们会让你表达自己的观点，然后可能会得出一些客观的真理。但那时，我对自己的生活感到非常无聊。每个青少年都会经历一种存在危机，比如思考生活的意义，想知道自己到底在干什么。有一段时间，我决定，既然无论如何都得去上学，那我不如尝试做一些不可能的事情，成为最好的学生，在每一门科目上都拿A，或者用俄国的评分系统来说，就是拿5分。这让我忙了一阵子。

It was incredibly difficult because you didn't have enough time. Even if you just started all the time, not doing anything else, you didn't have any time left to prepare all the homework, tasks and get ready for all the tests. So I ended up using the brakes between classes, but I get to the result I wanted to get to. I got the excellent mark in every subject. And that kept me happy for a while. What did you understand about an effective education system from studying for language at the same time, doing such a diversity? Like, if you were to design an education system from scratch for young people, especially in the 21st century, what would that look like? You posted about the value of mathematics as a foundation for everything.

因为时间不足，所以这真的非常困难。即使你一直在做功课，没有做其他事情，你也没有足够的时间来准备所有的作业和考试。所以我只好在课间休息时间里努力，但最终我得到了我想要的结果，所有科目都拿到了优秀的成绩。这让我开心了一段时间。你在同时学习语言和应对各种任务时，对一个有效的教育系统有何理解？如果要从头开始为年轻人设计一个教育系统，特别是在21世纪，这应该是什么样的？你曾发表帖子谈论数学作为一切基础的重要性。

Yeah, I still think math is essential. It's something that shapes your brain. It teaches you to rely on your logical thinking to split big problems in your smaller parts, put them in the right sequence, solve them patiently, trying again if it doesn't work. And this is exactly the same skill you need in programming and project management and start it when you start your own company. And it's one of the few subjects in school which encourages you to develop your own thinking as opposed to rely on what other people have to say and just repeating their opinions. That is extremely valuable.

是的，我仍然认为数学是必不可少的。它帮助塑造你的大脑。数学教会你依靠逻辑思维，把大问题拆分成小部分，然后按正确的顺序解决它们。如果不成功，需要耐心地反复尝试。这样的技能在编程、项目管理以及创业时都非常重要。而且，数学是学校课程中少数鼓励你独立思考的科目之一，而不是仅仅依赖他人的观点或重复他们的意见。这种能力非常宝贵。

And of course, once you're good at math, you can apply it in physics and engineering, in coding. And it's not surprising that most of the most successful tech founders in CEOs are very good at math and coding because ultimately it's the same mental skill that you rely on. But back then in the school, I realized something else as well. It's that competition is really important. Competition is key. This is what motivates a lot of teenagers when they're at school. If you remove competition out of the education system, you end up forcing kids to start competing elsewhere, for example, in video games.

当然，一旦你擅长数学，你就能将其应用到物理、工程和编程中。而且，大多数成功的科技公司的创始人和CEO都非常擅长数学和编程，这并不令人意外，因为最终这依赖的是同一种思维能力。但在学校时，我还意识到了另一件事，那就是竞争非常重要。竞争是关键。这是激励许多青少年在学校努力的重要因素。如果在教育体系中去掉竞争，你就会迫使孩子们在其他地方寻找竞争的机会，比如在电子游戏中。

It's a trend you see now in many countries including in the West, when well-meaning authorities or parents say, we don't want our kids to be too stressed. We don't want them to feel anxiety. So let's just get rid of all the public grading system, all these rankings of who won, who lost. We don't want any of that. And part of it is justified, but as a result, some kids lose interest. Yes, you eliminate the losers, but you end up eliminating the winners as well. And then if you're overprotective of the kids in that age, they grow up, graduate schools, the universities, and they are still not prepared for real life because real life is constant competition for jobs, for promotions, for customers.

这是一种在许多国家流行的趋势，包括西方国家。有好心的政府或家长说，我们不希望孩子们承受太多压力，不希望他们感到焦虑。所以我们干脆取消所有的公共评分系统，取消胜负排名。我们不想要这些。部分原因是有道理的，但结果是一些孩子失去了兴趣。是的，这样做的确消除了失败者，但也消灭了赢家。如果过度保护孩子，他们长大后，毕业进入社会，仍然对现实生活没有准备，因为现实生活中工作、升职、争取客户的竞争是无处不在的。

And it's more brutal. What you have as a result is high suicide rates, high unemployment, all the things and negative trends you see now. In many countries which thought eliminating competition from their education system was a good idea. They still persist, they still think competition is a bad thing, they try to eliminate competition from their economy as well to an extent, saying we're going to make sure the losers don't lose and the winners don't get too much. But as a result, they make their entire systems less competitive, their entire economies, some of them in Europe, and now struggling to keep up with China, with South Korea, with Singapore, with Japan and other places where the education system was based on ruthless competition.

翻译：这更加残酷。结果是，许多国家的自杀率高、失业率高，以及其他你现在看到的负面趋势。在许多曾认为从教育体系中消除竞争是个好主意的国家中，这种趋势依然存在。他们仍然认为竞争是坏事，也尝试在一定程度上从经济中消除竞争，称要确保“不让失败者输得太惨，也不让赢家赢得太多”。但结果却是，他们使整个系统、甚至一些欧洲国家的整个经济变得不那么有竞争力，而现在它们在努力追赶中国、韩国、新加坡、日本以及其他那些教育体系以残酷竞争为基础的地方。

So this is a hard choice any civilization has to make. We support competition understanding that eventually it leads to progress in science and technology and abundance for society at large. Or we remove competition thinking that somehow we can shield the future generations from the stress that competition inevitably causes. Yeah, I mean it's grounded in a good instinct of compassion. You don't want people who suck at a thing to feel pain, but it seems like struggle is a part of life either you do it earlier, you do it later. And it's true, that's such a good point that competition does seem to be a really powerful driver of skill development. Thank you mentioned, pursuing mastery. There's something in human nature that especially for young people, if you can compete at a thing, you're going to be really drawing to get good at that thing.

这是每个文明都必须面对的一个艰难选择。我们支持竞争，因为我们理解竞争最终会带来科技进步和社会繁荣。或者，我们消除竞争，想着能以某种方式保护未来的世代免于竞争所带来的压力。确实，这背后蕴含着一种善意的同情心。我们不希望那些不擅长某件事情的人感到痛苦，但困难似乎是生活的一部分，无论是早点经历还是晚点经历。没错，您提到的一个很好的观点是，竞争确实是技能发展的强大推动力。尤其是对年轻人来说，人性的某种特质令他们在可以竞争的事物中更愿意努力去精通这些技能。

If you can direct that in the education system as China does as many as many nations like you mentioned do, then you're going to develop a lot of brilliant people, resilient people, people that are ready to create epic shit in the world. Think there is a lot of evidence proving that we are biologically wired to compete and establish our understanding of what our quotas are and talents are in relation to other people around us. And this is one of the ways society self-regulates. Speed of competition, your brother, Nikolai. He's a mathematician, programmer, expert in cryptography. He has won the IMO International Mathematics Olympiad. He got gold medal three times, ICPC programming two times, has two PhDs in mathematics.

如果你能像中国和其他你提到的国家一样，将类似的策略运用到教育体系中，那么你将培育出许多杰出的人才，他们不仅具备复原力，还能够在世界上创造伟大的事物。有很多证据表明，我们在生物上天生具有竞争的倾向，并通过与周围的人比较来确定自己的能力和天赋。这也是社会自我调节的一种方式。就像你的兄弟尼古拉一样，他是数学家、程序员和密码学专家。他曾获得国际数学奥林匹克竞赛（IMO）的金牌三次，并且在ICPC编程竞赛中获奖两次，还拥有数学的两个博士学位。

And you have worked together for many years creating incredible technologies that we've been talking about. So what have you learned about just life from your brother? Well, first of all, I must say I learned pretty much everything from my brother. Everything I know because when we were used to be kids, we slept in the same bedroom, like beds, a few feet away from each other. And I kept bugging him with questions. I asked him about dinosaurs and galaxies and black holes and neanderthals. Everything I could think of, and he was my Wikipedia back in the time when we didn't have internet access. He's a unique pro-JJ kid, probably one of a billion. He started reading at the age of three, I think.

你们一起工作多年，创造出了我们经常谈论的那些不可思议的技术。那么，从你的兄弟那里你学到了关于生活的什么呢？首先，我必须说我几乎所有的知识都是从我兄弟那里学来的。当我们还是孩子的时候，我们睡在同一个房间里，床只相隔几英尺。我总是缠着他问问题。我问他关于恐龙、星系、黑洞和尼安德特人等各种事情。他当时就像是我的百科全书，那时我们还没有互联网。他是一个特别出色的孩子，可能是十亿人中才有一个的天才。他大概在三岁时就开始阅读了。

And he pretty fast got so advanced in maths, but by the age of six, he could already read really sophisticated books on astronomy. Sometimes when he did it in public places like passes or metro, my mom was criticized by people who were witnessing it. They would tell her, why are you mocking your own kid with this serious book? It's obvious the kid can't understand everything there. It's too complicated. Even we don't understand anything there. There's some formulas. And he was already sucking in this knowledge. He just has this thirst for information. So he was the source of all kinds of great fads, useful things, inspiring things. He taught me pretty much everything I know.

他在数学方面进步得很快，到六岁时已经能阅读非常复杂的天文学书籍了。有时他在公共场所，如公交车或地铁上看书，我妈妈会被旁人批评。他们会对她说：“你为什么要让这么小的孩子看这么严肃的书？这孩子明显看不懂，内容太复杂了，连我们都看不懂，还有一些公式呢。”但实际上，他已经在吸收这些知识了。他对知识有一种强烈的渴望，他是各种潮流、实用信息和启发性事物的来源。他几乎教会了我所有我所知的事情。

At the same time, he is incredibly modest and kind. And this is something I think a lot of people that think this, but not generally intelligent, lack. More often than not, people who are truly intelligent, they're also kind and compassionate. And he is that. Definitely. You actually have been staying out of the public eye for the most part. You've done very few interviews. You're pretty low-key, but your brother isn't another level. He's been staying out of the public eye. What's behind that? Part of it is his natural modesty. He doesn't need to do it. He doesn't feel this urge to show off, brag about stuff.

同时，他非常谦虚和善良。我认为很多人意识到了这一点，但通常不太聪明的人往往缺乏这些品质。真正聪明的人往往也是善良和富有同情心的，而他就是这样的人，毫无疑问。实际上，你一直保持低调，很少出现在公众视野，你的采访也非常少。但和你相比，你的弟弟更加低调。他基本上没有在公众视野中露面，这是为什么呢？部分原因是他的天生谦虚。他不需要这么做，也没有炫耀的欲望。

I tried to avoid it as well, but at a certain point I realized that me being too private, too secretive becomes a liability because it creates this void, this emptiness that people and organizations that don't like telegram very much are willing to fill with inaccurate information. They're willing to spread the narratives about telegram, which can result in strange situations, some of which we discussed earlier. For example, this French investigation. Yeah, I've gotten to know you more and more. There's a deep integrity to you that I think is good to show to the world. There's a lot of attack vectors on user privacy.

我也曾试图避免这种情况，但我意识到，过于隐私、过于保密反而可能会成为一种负担，因为这会造成一种空白。这种空白让那些不太喜欢 Telegram 的人和组织乐于用不准确的信息去填补。他们乐于散布关于 Telegram 的叙述，这可能会导致一些奇怪的情况，比如我们之前讨论过的那个法国的调查。是的，我越来越了解你。我认为你有一种深刻的正直感，这种正直感应该向世人展示。在用户隐私方面有很多攻击途径。

I think the most important the last wall of protection is the actual people that are running the company. It's important to some degree for you to be out there, to showing your true self. We should say that also you didn't mention, but your programmer from an early age, you started coding at 10 first things you built or a video game at 11 and eventually 10 years later in 21, you programmed the initial versions of VK single handedly. Can you talk to me about your programmer journey that led to the creation of VK? What was the VK stack? The PHP mostly? How did you figure out how to program websites? All of that.

我认为最重要的最后一道保护墙就是实际管理公司的人员。在某种程度上，让大家看到真实的自己是很重要的。还想说一点，你虽然没有提到，但你很早就成为了一名程序员。从10岁开始你就接触编码，11岁时你创造了第一个电子游戏。10年后，你在21岁时独自编写了VK的初始版本。能谈谈你的程序员历程是如何引领你创建VK的吗？VK的技术栈是什么？主要是PHP吗？你是如何学会开发网站的？所有这些。

I wasn't interested in probably websites at first, I didn't even have access to things when I was 10 years old, but I liked video games. I didn't have enough of them. And the scarcity forced me to start building them, more computer games, just to play myself. It's actually an interesting thing that we sometimes don't realize it, but scarcity leads to creativity. And one of the reasons you have so many people who love to code coming from the Soviet Union or other places which didn't have much access to modern technology and, more importantly, modern entertainment is that perhaps we were not so much distracted by all this abundance of different entertainment options, which is not to say it's bad to have those options. It's just a fact that we sometimes don't appreciate. So I started to build computer games. My brother would sometimes guide me; for example, I would create a turned-based strategy. Of course, too-dimensional, but I couldn't really mention it too much for me.

起初我对各种网站没有兴趣，也无法使用这些东西，因为我十岁的时候还没有条件接触到这些平台，但我非常喜欢视频游戏。然而，我的游戏数量并不多，这种匮乏促使我开始自己制作游戏，更多的是计算机游戏，就为了自己能玩。这实际上是一个很有趣的现象，我们有时没有意识到，匮乏会激发创造力。苏联或其他现代科技和娱乐资源匮乏的地方，我们看到许多人热爱编程的原因之一，也许就是因为我们没有被各种丰富的娱乐选择分散注意力。虽然这并不是说有丰富的选择不好，而是一个我们有时不太重视的事实。于是我就开始制作电脑游戏，我的哥哥有时会指导我，比如当我创建一个回合制策略游戏时。当然，这些游戏都是二维的，不过对我来说这已经足够了。

But it wasn't as sleek in terms of the scrolling FPS frames per second parameter, and I asked my brother how to optimize it. He would guide me. And this kind of learning and training really shaped my coding skills when I was younger. Then I started to create video games for my classmates. When we played, for example, Tik Tok Toe in an infinite field in my class during the breaks, you know, not Tik Tok Toe, the three in a row. This is, or the five in a row, in an infatured field. This is a much more interesting game. And it gets quite complicated if you keep playing it. My classmates used to love it, and some of my classmates were really smart and champions of math, Olympics, sounds, and daughters of professors at the university.

但是在滚动FPS（每秒帧数）参数方面，它并不那么流畅，于是我问我哥哥如何优化这个问题。他会指导我。这种学习和训练在我年轻时对我的编程技能产生了很大的影响。后来，我开始为我的同学们制作电子游戏。例如，我们在课间休息时会玩一个无限棋盘上的井字棋，不是一般的三连珠，而是更有趣的游戏。这就像五子棋，在不断游戏中变得相当复杂。我的同学们特别喜欢它，其中一些同学非常聪明，是数学奥林匹克的冠军，还有一些是大学教授的子女。

And I decided, no, I want to win every single time. I don't know who's even a single time, so how do I win? I need to practice more. But how do I practice more? I need an opponent stronger than myself. So I coded this game so that I would play against the computer. And the computer would calculate, I think, four moves in advance to choose the optimal strategy. That wasn't enough. Four moves in advance, I would still win over it. If I tried to calculate five or six, it was too slow. So I asked my brother, tell me out here. So he made this algorithm. Eventually, I trained myself to win every single time, even with the computer. Back then, we didn't have modern CPUs, and I could still retain some self-confidence. We'd go back to school during breaks, play with my classmates.

我决定不行，我每次都要赢。我不知道每次赢的是谁，所以我要怎么赢呢？我需要更多的练习。但我要怎么练习呢？我需要一个比我更强的对手。所以我编写了这个游戏，让自己可以和电脑对战。电脑会计算并选择接下来四步的最佳策略。但这还不够，计算四步的电脑我还是能赢。如果尝试计算五步或六步，速度就太慢了。于是我请求我哥哥帮忙，他为此写了一个算法。最后，我训练自己在每一次对战中都能赢，包括对电脑也是如此。那个时候，我们没有现代的CPU，但是我依然保持着一些自信。我会在课间休息时回到学校，和同学们一起玩。

And soon, people started to lose interest. Not all my classmates wanted to play this game anymore. I killed the game. So after that, when I got into the same period of state university, it was quite boring just to study because it was too easy. So I thought, what can I do there? I created a website for the students of my faculty first. I organized the creation of digital answers to all exams and digitalized version of all lectures, which was something very unique back then. Remember, it was 25 years ago. I would put together a website where I would publish all these materials. And pretty soon it became super popular. I opened a discussion forum there.

很快，人们就开始失去兴趣。我班上的同学们不再都想玩这个游戏了。我毁掉了这个游戏。所以之后，当我进入同一个州立大学的时期，只是学习变得有点无聊，因为这太简单了。我想，我能在那里做些什么呢？我首先为我们学院的学生创建了一个网站。我组织了所有考试的答案和所有讲座的数字化版本的制作，这在当时是非常独特的。记住，那是25年前的事情。我建了一个网站，把这些材料都发布上去。很快，这个网站就变得非常受欢迎。我在上面开了一个讨论论坛。

In a few years, I expanded to the university with all of its other departments and then to other universities. We ended up having tens of thousands of users just as a student portal. We had all kinds of social features there, friends lists, photo albums, profiles, blogs, all of it. It was quite successful. And after I graduated from the university, one of my ex-classmates from the school reached out to me after reading about my successes in a newspaper, the main business newspaper of St. Petersburg. He asked me, are you trying to build a Russian Facebook? I said, I'm not sure what's Facebook. He said, so we met. He graduated from an American university two years before that. He showed me Facebook.

几年后，我把平台扩展到大学的各个部门，然后扩展到其他大学。结果，我们作为一个学生门户拥有了成千上万的用户。我们在那里添加了各种社交功能，比如好友列表、相册、个人资料、博客等等，取得了相当大的成功。在我大学毕业后，有位以前的同学看到圣彼得堡一家主要商业报纸报道了我的成功事迹后联系了我。他问我是不是在试图建立一个俄罗斯版的Facebook，我说我不太了解Facebook是什么。他说，那我们见个面吧。他比我早两年从一所美国大学毕业，他给我展示了Facebook。

I thought, well, I already have all this technology, but it's valuable to know which elements I should get rid of in order to scale this thing and have millions of users. This is also something people don't appreciate that sometimes in order to move forward and have more success, you have to get rid of things, including technology. Getting rid of features is super important. Simplify both for scaling and for making it amenable to just growing the user base for people getting immediately. Yes, otherwise it's just too complicated for the new user. The existing users will be happier. They'll be praising you, and they will be asking you to add more stuff to make it even more complicated. So it's easy to lose track and get disoriented if you're only relying on the feedback of existing users.

我想，既然我已经拥有了这些技术，那么了解需要去掉哪些元素，以便扩大规模并获得数百万用户，这就很有价值。人们常常不理解，有时候为了向前迈进并获得更大的成功，你必须舍弃一些东西，包括技术。去掉不必要的功能非常重要。简化不仅有利于扩大规模，还能让新用户更容易上手。否则对新用户来说就太复杂了。而老用户会更满意，他们会赞扬你，同时希望你添加更多东西，让它变得更复杂。因此，如果仅依赖现有用户的反馈，很容易迷失方向，被弄得不知所措。

As a result, I started the website called vContact or VK. It means in touch in Russian. Initially, I wanted to solve my own personal problem. I graduated from the university that same year and I wanted to be in touch, remaining in touch with my ex-classmates from the university and the other fellow students. Of course, as a 20-year-old, I wanted to meet other people, including good-looking girls. So I started to build it from scratch. For that one, I thought I'm not going to use any third-party libraries, modules because I want to make it as efficient as possible. I was obsessing over every line of code. But then how do you start something that large? I didn't have any prior experience of quitting a project of that scale, which would involve everything. Before I would reuse some existing solutions, here I wanted to build from scratch.

因此，我创建了一个名为“vContact”或“VK”的网站，它在俄语中意味着“保持联系”。最初，我是为了解决自己的个人问题而启动这个项目的。当年我刚从大学毕业，希望能够继续与我的前同学以及其他学生保持联系。当然，作为一个20岁的年轻人，我也想结识其他人，包括一些漂亮的女生。所以，我决定从头开始构建这个网站。为此，我打算不使用任何第三方库或模块，因为我希望它尽可能高效。我对每一行代码都格外认真。但是，要如何开始这样一个庞大的项目呢？我之前没有过主持这种规模项目的经验，以前我通常会重用一些现有的解决方案，但这次我想从头开始构建。

So I called my brother. He was a postdoc student in Germany at that time in the Max Planck University. I asked him, what should I start from? He told me, just build a module to authorize users. Just not to log in, not even to sign out, just to log in. Because you can pre-populate the database with credentials and emails in passwords. It doesn't really matter. But once you see that you can type in your password and email, and you're in, and it tells you hello using your name, then you will have a clear understanding where to go from there. Yeah, I mean, that's true. That's one of the best advice I've ever got in my life. It worked perfectly by the way.

所以我打电话给我哥哥。当时他是德国马克斯·普朗克大学的一名博士后学生。我问他，我应该从哪里开始？他告诉我，只需要建立一个授权用户的模块。不必关注登录或注销，只需要关注登录即可。因为你可以在数据库中预先填充一些凭据和邮箱密码。这些并不重要。不过，一旦你看到自己输入了密码和邮箱后可以成功登录，并且系统用你的名字向你问好，你就会清楚下一步的方向。是的，我觉得这是真的，这是我人生中得到的最好的建议之一。而且这确实非常有效。

I started to build it, and before I knew it, I would have there on the website, photo albums, private messages, this guest book we used to call the wall back on the K-ion, I guess, in the early days of Facebook. We'd end up building something even more sophisticated than Facebook at the time, with more features. I had a girlfriend at the time I asked her, we need to somehow come up with a database of all Russian schools and universities and departments and subdivisions. She did a great job trying to source all this information online, or sometimes writing emails to the university saying, which departments you have exactly at this point, we need to know or reaching out to the Department of Education, both in Russia and then in Ukraine and then eventually in Belarus and in Kazakhstan and other countries where VK ended up to be the largest and most popular social network.

我开始搭建这个网站，没过多久，我就在网站上加上了相册、私人消息，还有一个我们当时叫做“墙”的留言本，这个概念大概是受早期Facebook的启发。结果，我们构建的东西比当时的Facebook还要先进，功能更多。那时我有个女朋友，我让她帮忙搜集所有俄罗斯学校、大学、院系和分支机构的信息。她做得非常出色，通过在线搜索或者给大学发送邮件询问，了解每个学校具体有哪个院系，或者联系教育部门。我们在俄罗斯、乌克兰、最终在白俄罗斯、哈萨克斯坦以及其他国家的努力，使得VK成为最大的、最受欢迎的社交网络。

So we did a few things that were quite unique at the time. And for the first, almost a year, I was a single employee of the company. I was the back end engineer, the front end engineer, the designer. I was the customer support officer. I was the marketing guy as well, coming up with all the wardings and the announcements, coming up with competitions to promote VK, which worked quite well. That was an incredible experience that gave me knowledge of every aspect of a social networking platform. Also understanding of how much a single person can do. Exactly. It's one of the reasons why I'd like to think I'm an efficient project manager and been product manager inside Telegram because I will not take anything but ambitious deadlines from my team members.

所以，在当时我们做了一些相当独特的事情。差不多一年的时间里，我是公司唯一的员工。我负责后端开发、前端开发、设计工作。我也兼任客服，负责市场营销，撰写所有的文案和公告，并通过举办比赛来推广VK，这些都取得了不错的效果。这是一段令人难以置信的经历，让我了解了社交网络平台的各个方面，也让我明白了一个人能做到多少。这正是为什么我认为自己是一名高效的项目经理，并在Telegram担任产品经理的原因之一，因为我只接受我团队成员提出的雄心勃勃的期限。

If somebody gives me, oh, I need three weeks to do that. I will reply, oh, I built the first version of VK in just two weeks. Why would you need three weeks? It seems like something you could make real in just three days. Three weeks, what are you going to do the rest of the three weeks apart from the three days? And the team knows me and that's why we are able today. Tell them to move at a very good pace of innovation every month. We're pushing several meaningful features. I think I would competing everybody else in this industry in terms of what you can do within the short time frame. So yes, that experience was invaluable.

如果有人告诉我需要三周时间来完成一个任务，我会回应说，我在两周内就完成了VK的第一个版本。为什么你需要三周？这似乎是可以在三天内完成的事情。除了那三天，你接下来的三周打算做什么呢？团队了解我，也正因如此，我们现在能够以非常快的创新步伐前进。每个月我们都在推出几个有意义的新功能。我认为在短时间内完成任务方面，我们比行业中的其他人都更有竞争力。所以，这段经历的确非常宝贵。

As for the stack, I started from PHP and MySQL, Debian Linux, but very soon I realized I need to optimize this. I started using Memcache, Apache servers were not enough anymore. We had to set up engine X and my brother was still living in Germany. He couldn't help me much for the first year of building VK. Sometimes I would manage to get through to him through a call. I would use an old-school phone to call him with wires. I said, how do I install this thing called engine X? I'm not a Linux guy. If he felt particularly kind that day, not too busy, he would show me the way to do it or set it up himself. But for the most part I had to rely on just myself.

关于技术栈，我最初使用的是PHP和MySQL，以及Debian Linux，但很快我意识到需要进行优化。我开始使用Memcache，因为Apache服务器已经不够用了。于是我们必须设置Nginx，而那时我哥哥还住在德国。在VK构建的第一年里，他没能给我太多帮助。有时候，我会通过电话与他联系。我用的是那种有线的老式电话，打电话问他：“如何安装这个叫Nginx的东西？我对Linux不太熟。”如果那天他比较有空闲，且心情不错，就会告诉我该怎么做，或者亲自帮我安装。但大多数时候，我只能靠自己。

Having him variable helped when we started to grow fast and started to scale it. Because at first you realize one server is not enough. I need to buy another one. Then another one. The database should be in a different server. Then you have to split the database into tables. Then you have to come up with a way to chart the tables using some criteria that would make sense that wouldn't break your user experience. When we got to over a million users and beyond a dozen of servers, surviving without the input from my brother in terms of taking care of the scaling aspect of it became impossible. I remember asking him to come back. Because he needed to help me with this thing, starting to be really big.

当我们开始快速增长并需要扩展时，他的多才多艺对我们很有帮助。因为一开始你会发现一个服务器不够用，于是我需要再买一个，然后再买一个。数据库应该放在不同的服务器上，然后你需要把数据库拆分成多个表。接下来，你必须想出一种方法，按照某些合理的标准来整理这些表，以确保不破坏用户体验。当我们的用户数量达到一百万以上并且使用了十多个服务器时，没有我哥哥在扩展方面的投入几乎是不可能撑下去的。我记得我请求他回来，因为这个项目变得非常庞大，我需要他的帮助。

What was worse is that since we became popular, somebody started to do a certain attacks on us. It always happens. And then we had people that wanted to buy a share of VK. And interestingly, every time we had a negotiation day, they did attacks and intensified. So we had to come up with a way to fight it. I remember having a conversation with a guy who was talking about the same thing. Many sleepless nights trying to figure it out. That was your introduction to all kinds of bad actors. DDoS, business. Then later you'd find out there's such a thing called politics. And then later geopolitics.

更糟糕的是，自从我们变得流行起来后，就有人开始针对我们进行某种攻击。这种情况总是发生。然后，有人想要购买VK的股份。有趣的是，每次我们进行谈判的时候，攻击都会加剧。因此，我们不得不想办法应对这些攻击。我记得曾经和一个谈论同样问题的人交谈，为了解决问题，我们度过了许多不眠之夜。这是你首次接触到各种不轨之徒，比如DDoS攻击和商业。后来，你会发现还有政治这样的事情，再后来就是地缘政治的问题。

But this is the initial stages. Creating cool stuff. Having to deal with, as you now have to deal with the telegram, is seize of bad actors trying to test the limits of the system, trying to break the system. Unfortunately, if we didn't have bad actors and pressure, you'll be the best job ever. You just get to create. Yeah. Yeah. And so the help from your brother, like you mentioned, and GeneXan, sharpening the tables, some of this scaling issue is algorithmic nature. It's almost like theoretical computer science. It's not just about like buy more computers. It's figuring out how to algorithmically make everything work extremely fast.

但这只是初期阶段。在创造很酷的事物时，你需要应对一些麻烦，比如像现在需要处理通过电报的坏人。这些坏人试图测试系统的极限，甚至破坏系统。不幸的是，如果没有这些坏人和压力，你的工作将是最棒的，因为你可以尽情创造。是的，是的。因此，你提到的来自你兄弟的帮助以及GeneXan的支持，可以解决一些扩展性问题，这些问题是算法层面的。这几乎就像是理论计算机科学，不仅仅是简单地购买更多的电脑，而是要弄清楚如何通过算法让一切运行得非常快。

Some of this is mathematics. Some of this is pure engineering, but some of it is mathematics. Yeah. So at that stage, I could do the basic stuff. I could understand how I implement scalability into the code base, how we short my tables, in the database where I include memcached instead of direct requests to the database. That was quite easy, because it was still PHP back in the day. When my brother got back from Germany somewhere around 2008, I asked him, can we make it even more efficient? Can we make it super fast? And at the same time, so that we would require even fewer servers to maintain the load.

其中有些是数学，有些是纯工程，但也有一部分是数学。是的。所以在那时，我可以做一些基础的事情。我明白如何在代码库中实现可扩展性，如何对数据库中的表进行分片，将memcached用在数据库请求中而不是直接请求数据库。这些相对简单，因为那时用的还是PHP。当我哥哥大约在2008年从德国回来时，我问他，我们可以让它更高效吗？我们可以让它超级快，同时也能减少所需的服务器数量来承受负载吗？

And he said, yes, but PHP is not enough. I'll have to rewrite big part of your data engines in cnc++. I said, okay, let's do that. He invited the friend of his help him another absolute champion in world's programming contest. Twice in a row. And they put together the first customized data engine, which is far more efficient than just relying on mySQL and memcached, because it was, first of all, more specialized, more low level. So the re-road in cc++? A large chunk of it, for example, the search, the ad engine, because VK had a target that ads the built-pad.

他说，没错，但是仅仅使用PHP还不够。我得用C和C++重写你们数据引擎的大部分。我说，好吧，那就这么做吧。他邀请了一个朋友来帮忙，这位朋友是世界编程大赛的绝对冠军，而且连续两次获奖。他们一起开发了第一个定制的数据引擎，这个引擎比单纯依赖于mySQL和memcached更加高效，因为它首先更专业、更低级。那么，用C和C++重写了哪些部分呢？比如搜索部分和广告引擎，因为VK有一个目标，就是优化广告平台。

It was very efficient, what they did. Eventually, the prior messaging part, the public messages part. At some point, we realized there are very few websites online that load faster than VK. Nice. I remember in 2009, I went to Silicon Valley. And I met Mark Zuckerberg first time and some of the other core team members of early Facebook. Remember, Facebook was just four or five years old then. And everybody kept asking me, how come even here in Silicon Valley, VK loads faster than Facebook? Everything seems to appear instantly on your website. What's the secret sauce? There was one of the things that made them very curious.

他们所做的事情非常高效。最终，他们在消息传递和公共消息部分做出了改进。到某个时候，我们意识到网上加载速度比VK快的网站非常少。不错。我记得在2009年，我去了硅谷。那时我第一次见到了马克·扎克伯格和早期Facebook的一些核心团队成员。那时，Facebook成立才四五年。大家都在问我，即使在硅谷，VK的加载速度怎么会比Facebook还快？你的网站上的内容似乎总是瞬间就出现了。有什么秘诀吗？这成为他们非常好奇的一件事。

And that was always important to have very low latency to make sure the thing loads. Because that's one of the things Telegram is really known for. Even non-crabby connections and all that kind of stuff, it just works extremely fast. Everything is fast. As one of the core technological ideas, we prioritize speed. We think that people can notice the difference, even if it's just like 50 million milliseconds difference. The difference is subconscious. It also allows us not just to be faster and more responsive. I was also more efficient when it comes to the infrastructure, the expenses.

这一直以来都很重要，就是要确保极低的延迟来保证东西加载迅速。这是Telegram广为人知的特点之一。即便在非理想的网络连接情况下，它仍然能保持极快的速度。速度就是我们的核心技术理念之一，我们优先考虑速度。我们认为即便是50毫秒的差别，人们也能在潜意识中感受到。这不仅使我们更快、更有响应力，也在基础设施和成本方面更有效率。

Because if you code executes faster, it means you need fewer computational resources to run it. So there is no way you can lose in making things faster. And that's why we have always been very careful when hiring people. I would only hire a person if I'm ultimately certain is the best option. If you hire somebody who is maybe a little bit distracted, inexperienced, you may end up with inefficiencies in your code base that results in tens of millions of dollars of losses. And think about the responsibility. If we jump today from the VK days, the program is used by over a billion people.

因为如果你的代码运行得更快，就意味着你需要更少的计算资源来执行它。所以提高速度是不会让你吃亏的。这也是为什么我们在招聘时一直非常谨慎。我只会在确信某人是最佳人选的情况下才会聘用。如果你雇用了一个可能有点分心、缺乏经验的人，可能会导致代码库中的低效，从而造成数千万美元的损失。想想这样的责任吧。如果我们从VK时代一下子跃到现在，这个程序已经被超过十亿人使用了。

They open it dozens of times every day. Imagine the app opens with a slide delay, say half a second delay, multiplied by dozens of times by a billion. It's centuries, millennia lost for humanity without any reason other than just being sloppy. That is so important to understand and so wise that it's actually if you're just a little bit careless as a developer, you can introduce inefficiencies that are going to be very difficult to track down because you don't know that it can be faster. Like the code doesn't scream at you saying this could be much faster. So you have to actually as a craftsman be very careful when you're writing in color and always thinking can this be done much more efficiently? And it can be tiny things because they all propagate throughout the code. So there's a real cost in having a careless developer anywhere in the company. Because they can introduce that inefficiency and all the other developers won't know they'll just assume it kind of has to be that way.

他们每天要打开这个应用程序几十次。试想一下，如果应用程序打开时有半秒的延迟，这个延迟乘以数十次再乘以十亿，那就意味着人类在无意义的拖延中会失去几百年甚至上千年的时间。这是非常重要的一点，值得理解，同时也显示了智慧。因为只要开发人员稍微粗心一点，就可能引入非常难以追踪的低效问题，因为他们不知道程序其实可以更快。代码不会自己告诉你它可以运行得更快。因此，作为一个工匠，在编写代码时一定要非常小心，时刻思考能否更高效。即使是细微的事情，也会在代码中传播开来。所以在公司里，一个粗心的开发者所带来的代价是非常真实的。因为他们可能引入低效问题，而其他开发者会认为程序本来就是那样的，不会意识到它其实可以更高效。

So there's a real responsibility for every single individual developer that's building any component of an app like telegram to just always ask, okay, can this be done more efficiently? Can this be done more simply? And that's like one of the most beautiful aspects the art forms of programming. Right? Oh yes, because when you manage to discover a way to simplify things, make them more efficient, you feel incredibly happy and proud and accomplished. And to your point, I can recall a few instances in my career where firing an engineer actually resulted in an increase in productivity. You say you have two hundred engineers building the app and then they just can't make it there and not keeping up with the pace of the really picture release schedule.

每个开发人员在编写像Telegram这样的应用程序组件时，都有责任不断思考：这个功能可以更高效地实现吗？可以更简单地设计吗？这正是编程这门艺术的迷人之处。是的，当你发现一种简化方法，让它们更加高效时，会感到无比快乐、自豪和有成就感。我记得在我的职业生涯中，有几次解雇了某个工程师后，反而提高了生产力。比如说，当你有两百个工程师在开发应用程序，但他们就是无法跟上紧凑的发布计划时，这种事情就可能发生。

And you think I probably have to hire a third one. But then you notice that one of them is really weird, falling behind the schedule, complaining some of the time, doesn't assume responsibility. And you ask, so whatever, just fire this person, and you fire this person. And a few weeks we realized you actually don't need any new, never needed the third engineer. The problem was this guy who created more issues and more problems than he solved. That is so counterintuitive because in developing tech projects, we tend to think that you just throw more people into something and then things get solved miraculously by themselves, just because more people means more attention from them.

你可能认为需要雇第三个人。但你注意到，其中一个人表现得很奇怪，经常落后于进度，有时还抱怨，不承担责任。于是你决定解雇这个人。几周后，我们意识到实际上并不需要新的人，从来不需要第三个工程师。问题出在这个人身上，他制造的问题比解决的还要多。这很反直觉，因为在开发技术项目时，我们常常认为只要投入更多的人手，问题就会自行获得更多关注并神奇地解决。

That's again extremely powerful. Steve Jobs talked about A players and B players. And there's something that happens when you have B players, which is kind of like the folks you're talking about, introduced into a team that can somehow slow everybody down, they demotivate everybody. It's very counterintuitive. The basically part of the work of creating a great team is removing the B players. Not just hiring more, in generally speaking, it's finding that A players, quote unquote, and removing the people that are slowing things down. Oh yes, because the other thing that people don't realize is how demotivating working with the B player is.

这确实非常有说服力。史蒂夫·乔布斯谈到了A类员工和B类员工。当一个团队中引入了B类员工时，就会发生一些事情，他们可能会拖慢整个团队的速度，并使大家失去动力。这是非常违反直觉的。要打造一个优秀的团队，关键之一就是去除B类员工，不仅仅是招聘更多优秀员工，而是寻找所谓的A类员工，并移除那些拖慢进度的人。因为还有一点大家往往没有意识到的是，与B类员工共事有多么令人缺乏动力。

Everybody can tell if the other person, the other engineer they're working with is really competent. And if it's very visible, if the person is not comfortable, they are asking the wrong questions, they keep lagging behind. And at a certain point, if you're an A player, you get this dissatisfaction, this feeling that you are not able to realize your full potential, accomplish what you're really meant to accomplish, because of this person working next to you or pretending to work next to you. And by the way, in some cases it's not because the person is lazy. In some cases it's just the mental, the intellectual ability is not there. It's not about experience. Most often it's about natural ability and persistence. In 90% of cases it's just the inability to focus on one task for an extended period of time.

每个人都能判断与自己共事的另一位工程师是否真的有能力。如果这个人不太胜任，他们会问一些不合适的问题，并总是落后，这一点是很明显的。如果你是一个A类人才，与这样的同事共事时间久了，就会感到不满，因为你觉得自己的潜力没有得到充分发挥，无法完成自己真正想达成的目标。而这并不总是因为那个人懒惰，有时候只是因为他们的心智或智力能力不足，这与经验无关，更多的是关于天资和毅力。在90%的情况中，这种困扰是因为他们无法长时间专注于一项任务。

Not everybody has this ability. So for people who do have this ability, it's an insult to work alongside someone who is distracted and can go deep in the projects that they're responsible for. What's on this small tangent? What's your hiring process? So you've shown, you've talked about how you use competitions often, coding competitions to hire, to find great engineers. What's your thinking behind that? Well, it's in line with my overall philosophy, I think, competition leads to progress. If you want to create an ideal process for selecting the most qualified people, for certain specific tasks you have in mind, what can be better than a competition?

并不是每个人都有这种能力。所以对于那些有这种能力的人来说，与那些注意力分散且无法深入负责项目的人一起工作是一种侮辱。这是一个小插曲。你的招聘流程是什么？你提到过，你经常使用比赛，尤其是编程比赛来招聘和寻找优秀的工程师。你背后的思考是什么？嗯，我认为这符合我的整体理念，竞争带来进步。如果你想为选择最合适的人来完成特定任务创建一个理想的流程，还有什么比比赛更合适的呢？

A coding contest where everybody who wants to join your company as an engineer or just wants to get some prize money or validation can demonstrate their skills. Then we just select the best. Or if we are not certain, because there's not enough data to hire somebody, we just repeat the contest with another task, get more data, get more winners, then repeat again. And at some point, you realize, actually, this guy has competed in 10 of our contests since he was 16 years old or 14 years old. Now he's 20 or 21. He won in eight of these competitions. He seems to be really good in JavaScript and Android Java and also C++. Why not hire this person? There is some consistency there.

一场编程比赛，任何想加入我们公司成为工程师的人，或者仅仅想赢得奖金或获得认可的人，都可以在这里展示他们的技能。然后我们选择最优秀的选手。如果无法确定，因为收集的数据不足以决定是否聘用某人，我们会用另一个任务再举行一次比赛，获取更多数据，选出更多的获胜者，然后再重复这个过程。某一刻，你会发现，这个人从16岁或14岁开始一直参加我们的比赛，如今他已经20岁或21岁，并且赢得了其中的八场。他在JavaScript、安卓Java以及C++方面似乎非常优秀。为什么不聘用这个人呢？这证明了他具备稳定的能力。

And a lot of these people, they have never worked in a big company before, which is priceless. Because in a big company, people tend to shift responsibility. They have this shared responsibility wherein nobody fully understands who can take credit for a project, who can take blame for a project. Inside Telegram is pretty clear. And these competitions are the closest experience to what people will have when working at Telegram. So for example, we want to implement certain very tricky animation and redesign to the profile page of the Telegram Android version.

很多这些人以前从未在大公司工作过，这一点非常宝贵。因为在大公司中，人们往往会推卸责任，责任是共担的，这导致没人能完全搞清楚谁应该为项目的成功负责，谁又该为项目的失败承担责任。而在Telegram内部，这些事情很明确。这些竞赛是人们在Telegram工作的最接近的体验。比如，我们想在Telegram的安卓版本中，为个人资料页面实现一些非常复杂的动画和重新设计。

And the Android app, it's an open source app, anybody can take its code and play with it. So as a result, we would not just select the best person and hire this person, who will also select the best solution to the problem, because we would not suggest the contestants to solve trivial problems. It's something that's valuable. It saves a lot of time for us during the development. And because I always had this large social media platforms, which I could use to promote these competitions, somehow both VK and Telegram were very popular among engineers and designers, other tech people. I had no issue to promote these contests and find the right people ever.

这款安卓应用是一个开源应用，任何人都可以获取它的代码并进行修改。因此，我们不仅会选择最优秀的人才并雇用他们，还会选择最好的解决方案，因为我们不会让参赛者去解决那些琐碎的问题。这些问题是有价值的，它们在开发过程中为我们节省了大量时间。此外，我一直拥有大型社交媒体平台，能够用来宣传这些比赛。VK和Telegram在工程师、设计师和其他技术人员中都非常受欢迎，因此我在推广比赛和找到合适的人选方面从未遇到过问题。

And what can be better than for an employee of your company, of somebody who has been a user of it? This person has no prior experience of using Telegram. Their understanding would be very limited. Why would I even try to hire somebody from LinkedIn who worked at Google and other companies? Is used to receiving salary for nothing? Is used to shift responsibility and being stuck in endless meetings? And have very limited understanding of what Telegram stands for. It's just crazy if you think about it. Yeah, but because of that, you have extremely selective and slow in hiring.

还有什么比一个公司的员工是曾经的用户更好呢？这个人之前从未使用过Telegram，他们的理解会非常有限。为什么我要去LinkedIn上雇一个曾在Google和其他公司工作过的人呢？这种人习惯于拿钱不干活，习惯于推卸责任并陷入无休止的会议中，对Telegram的理念理解得很有限。仔细想想，这简直太疯狂了。是的，正因为如此，你们在招聘时极其挑剔而且进展缓慢。

So like, people really have to earn their spot. And as a result, I got a chance to sit in in one of the team meetings where people discuss the different features that are being developed, the different ideas, some of which are at the very cutting edge. And so you get to see behind the scenes how it's possible to have such a fast rate of idea generation. To generate the idea, you implement the prototype and then you eventually, it becomes an actual feature in the product. And so that's why you have this kind of half hilarious, half incredible fact that for many, as compared to WhatsApp and Signal, you've led the way and many other features.

所以，大家真的需要努力争取他们的位置。结果，我有机会参与了一次团队会议，会议上人们讨论正在开发的各种功能和不同的想法，其中一些非常前沿。因此，你可以看到幕后的运作方式，了解如何以如此快的速度产生想法。产生想法后，你会实施原型，然后最终，它会成为产品中的实际功能。因此，你会发现，这就是为什么相比于WhatsApp和Signal，你们在许多其他功能上引领潮流，这种事实既有点令人捧腹，又让人觉得不可思议。

Many other features would take for granted now. Many of which we know and love, like the auto-deleater timer. That was seven years ahead of any other messenger, message editing, replies. These are all like obvious things. I've even forgotten for some of them that Dave and we're never part. I mean, I think auto-deleater timer is a really brilliant idea. We implemented it in 2013 in the secret chat. It's funny thing about it is then when other apps started to copy it, like WhatsApp seven years after and then Signal and some other of the apps, they initially even copied the exact timestamps.

很多其他功能现在我们都视为理所当然。其中很多功能我们都非常喜欢，比如自动删除计时器。这项功能比其他任何通讯软件都早了七年。这些功能都是很明显的改进，以至于有些我都忘记是我们率先推出的。我认为自动删除计时器是一个非常出色的想法。我们在2013年就将其应用在秘密聊天中。有趣的是，当其他应用开始模仿这个功能时，比如 WhatsApp 在七年后，还有 Signal 和其他一些应用，他们最初甚至连时间戳都一模一样地复制。

So for example, if we had like one, three, and five seconds, they would also have one, three, and five seconds. They tried not to change it because they were not sure what was the magic sauce behind the signature. And ironically, it happens with many of these things. For example, when we designed how you reply to a message and you have a small snippet showing that you're replying to this message and now you're typing your response, then there is a small snippet into the message itself that if you tap on it, highlights the original message you're replying to.

所以，例如，如果我们有一秒、三秒和五秒的设定，他们也会有同样的一秒、三秒和五秒。他们尽量不去改变它，因为他们不确定这背后的关键诀窍是什么。有趣的是，这种情况在很多类似的东西上都会发生。比如，当我们设计如何回复一条消息时，你会看到一个小框显示你正在回复这条消息，同时你在输入回信。然后，在消息中同样有一个小框，如果你点击它，会高亮显示你正在回复的那条原始消息。

Seems pretty obvious, but there are certain design decisions that we were implementing at the time and we got this vertical line on the left, the other small things that are completely arbitrary. You can do it in a different way. But somehow the entire industry ended up copying exactly that solution. Now whenever you go to WhatsApp and student direct, Facebook Messenger, Signal, it doesn't mean you would see exactly the same or pretty much similar experience because nobody really wants to take the risk and innovate. If something works, why not just copy it?

看起来很明显，但我们当时在做一些特定的设计决定，结果在左边出现了这条垂直线，还有一些完全随机的小细节。你可以用不同的方法来做。但是，不知怎么的，整个行业最终都复制了那个方案。现在，无论你去WhatsApp、学生直达、Facebook Messenger、Signal，看到的东西不会完全相同却也大同小异，因为没有人真的想冒险和创新。如果某个东西奏效，为什么不直接复制呢？

Yeah, but we should say that it's done extremely well, the vertical line and the highlighting. I mean, all of these are tiny little strokes of genius by highlighting the text in a certain way that from a design perspective, makes it very clear that this part was written before and the thing under it is your reply. The distinction between the different formatting of the text. I mean, there's a, listen, I know how much typography is an art form. There's a lot of interacting, graphic, artistic elements inside the telegram that all have to play together extremely well.

是的，但我们应该说，这个设计真的做得非常好，尤其是纵向线条和高亮部分。我是说，这些都是一些绝妙的细节，通过以某种方式高亮文本，从设计的角度来看，让人非常清楚地知道哪个部分是之前写的，而下面的是你的回复。不同文本格式之间的区分非常明显。我知道字体设计是一门艺术，在这个过程中有很多图形和艺术元素的互动，它们在Telegram中完美地结合在一起。

Like you pointed out to me, this is something that blew my mind, which is the background gradient of telegram, shifts, it changes and it adjusts really nicely to the bubbles, the chat bubbles. And then there's like graphic elements on top of the gradient that are all interplay together. So all of that has to work really nicely with our sacrifice and clarity. Everything's just intuitive. That's very difficult to create. That is art. And on top of that, super fast.

就像你指出的那样，这件事让我感到震撼——Telegram 的背景渐变会随着聊天气泡的变化而变化，调整得非常自然。然后，在渐变的上面还有图形元素，它们彼此之间相互配合。所有这些元素都必须在保持简洁明了的同时完美协作，一切都显得非常直观。这种效果是很难创造的，这就是艺术。此外，整个过程还非常快速。

That's the hardest part. It's to make it look so that designers love it is one thing. The real challenge is make it look the way the designers love it and make it work on the weakest device as possible, the oldest, cheapest smartphones you can imagine. So if you take the moving gradients on the background of every telegram chat, this is something most people don't notice, but they can feel it. Yeah, they notice the subconsciously or something like that.

这是最困难的部分。让设计师喜欢是一个方面。真正的挑战是让设计师喜欢的设计在尽可能弱的设备上也能正常运行，比如你能想到的最老、最便宜的智能手机。就拿每个Telegram聊天背景上的动态渐变来说，大多数人可能没有注意到，但他们能够感受到，可能是下意识地注意到了。

There is a pleasant feeling. There's a feeling, there's a pleasant feeling when you're reading a chat. And that's where the design contributes to that. I think a gradient really does. I really love that about telegram the gradient. Not the technical thing you describe, but the feeling of it. And then the technical aspect of creating that feeling is incredible. I could probably come up with all kinds of algorithms of rendering that gradient that's going to be super inefficient.

有一种愉快的感觉。当你在读聊天记录时会有一种愉快的感觉，这就是设计的贡献。我认为渐变效果在这方面确实有效，我非常喜欢Telegram中的渐变效果。不是因为它的技术层面，而是因为它带来的感觉。而创造这种感觉的技术方面也是非常了不起的。我可能可以想出各种算法来渲染那个渐变效果，即使这些算法可能非常低效。

And so doing that efficiently is like or efficient, but not too beautiful because even doing something so trivial as a gradient can result in noticeable lines in the gradient that person can instantly say, oh no, it's not the right thing. So you can have to introduce certain randomness there. And then you have the gradient, but it's not enough. It's too plain. You want to have certain pattern as an overlay, but it should be simple enough not to distract you from the content, but it has to be entertaining enough to create a good feeling about the whole app.

要有效地做到这一点，可以说是高效，但不宜过于追求美观。因为即使是像渐变这样细微的事情，也可能导致明显的条纹出现，让人一眼就能看出不对劲。因此，你需要在其中引入某种随机性。不过有了渐变还不够，仅有渐变显得过于单调。你希望添加某种图案作为叠加效果，这种图案应该足够简单，不会让人偏离内容的注意力，但同时也要足够吸引人，从而让整个应用给用户带来愉悦的感受。

And another question, what kind of objects you want to include in this pattern and how this pattern would work will it be based on pixels or would it be vector-based and would it be vector-based? So there will be instantly scalable and high quality. And then I think for the default pattern and the default background, which is based on four colors, it's not a gradient based on two colors, it's four colors. And they're constantly shifting. I probably look through several thousand variations of that.

另外一个问题是，您想在这个图案中包含什么样的物体？这个图案将如何运作？是基于像素的，还是基于矢量的？如果是基于矢量的，就可以即时缩放并保持高质量。然后，我认为默认图案和背景是基于四种颜色的，并不是两种颜色的渐变，而是四种颜色，而且它们不断变化。我可能已经查看过几千种不同的变化。

Because it's such an important decision to make, it's the default beg. Of course, you can change it. Actually, you can set up your own four colors for that. You can change it. No way. Really? Yes, you can do it. And you want to rely on certain deeply hard-coded biological prologues of the human mind, right? So which color do you want to use? Is it going to be blue? Is it going to be yellow? Is it going to be green? Because each color has a different meaning in our brain.

因为这是一个非常重要的决定，所以默认情况下是这样的。当然，你可以更改它。实际上，你可以为此设置自己的四种颜色。你可以更改它。不会吧？真的吗？是的，你可以做到。而且，你想依赖于人类大脑中的某些深层硬编码的生物学前置因素，对吗？那么你想用哪种颜色呢？是蓝色吗？是黄色吗？还是绿色？因为每种颜色在我们的大脑中都有不同的意义。

And what kind of objects you want to put there? Something from our childhood, something from nature, or something that can create a different kind of mood. And this is just one detail of the app. So there are many details when you send a message, you are done typing a message, and you then tap send. And then the message gradually appears in the chat. How does it happen? So you want the input field to slowly morph into the actual message.

你想在那儿放什么样的物品呢？可以是我们童年的物品、大自然的东西，或者是能营造不同氛围的物品。这只是应用程序的一个小细节。应用程序中有很多这样的细节，比如，当你发送消息时，你输入完信息，点击发送，然后消息会逐渐出现在聊天框里。这是怎么实现的呢？你希望输入框能够慢慢地变成实际的消息显示出来。

To the message, yeah. And you want this to be done regardless of the context of the message, because sometimes the width would be different. Sometimes it would be containing media or link preview or other stuff that will change the message bubble. So you go through countless different scenarios and make sure every one of them works great, even if this message contains 4,000 characters. And then you look at all the platforms, iOS, Android, and all the old devices, all kinds of outdated operating systems, and the hardware, and the cross-the-tool, because you can have this really bad old phone, but using the newest operating system versions, what do you do?

是关于消息的，对吧。你希望无论消息的内容是什么，都能完成这一任务，因为有时候消息的宽度会不同。有时消息中会包含媒体、链接预览或其他内容，这些都会改变消息气泡的外观。所以你需要考虑无数种不同的情况，确保每一种情况都能很好地运作，即使这则消息含有4,000个字符。此外，还要查看所有平台，如iOS、Android，以及所有旧设备、各种过时的操作系统和硬件，以及跨工具的兼容性。因为有时你可能在一部很旧的手机上使用最新版本的操作系统，那该怎么办呢？

What kind of bugs you get there? And then of course, the installation works on tablets as well, and our iOS version works on an iPad, which I love a lot. You have to understand that everything can be really big, so we can consume a lot of space on your screen. And then it will trigger using more computational resources to render it. So there are a lot of nuances to it. But as long as you obsess over every small detail, at least every detail that really counts, you can get to a user experience, if you're really used to telegram, if you've been a regular user for at least a few weeks, going back to any other messaging app feels like a series downgrade.

你们在那里会遇到什么样的bug呢？当然，这个程序也能在平板电脑上运行，我们的iOS版本在iPad上也很不错，我非常喜欢这一点。你要明白，显示的内容可以非常大，这样会占用屏幕上很多空间，并且需要使用更多的计算资源来渲染。因此，其中有很多细节需要注意。但只要你关注每一个小细节，至少是每一个重要的细节，你就能获得一种优秀的用户体验。如果你对 Telegram 非常熟悉，并且至少使用了几周的话，回头去用其他任何消息应用都会感觉像是一次明显的降级。

Yeah, I mean, there are so many really magical moments. Like for example, the way a message evaporates when you delete it, that is a really pleasant experience. Oh yeah, and boy, was it hard to make? Particular Android. This Thanos snap effect, so the message is broken to tens of thousands particles, which go away like dust in the wind. It looks great, but it was so hard to make. Probably one of my favorite gooey graphical things. It's just art. It's pure art. It's incredible. So it's good to hear that it's been really fought over and thought through. It's extremely well done.

是的，我的意思是，有很多非常神奇的时刻。比如，当你删除一条信息，它消失的方式确实非常令人愉悦。哦，是的，这种效果真的很难实现，尤其是在Android系统上。这个"灭霸响指"特效，让信息仿佛被打碎成成千上万个粒子，然后像风中的尘埃一样消散。它看起来非常棒，但制作起来确实很难。这大概是我最喜欢的图形效果之一。它就是艺术，纯粹的艺术，令人难以置信。所以听到这个特效经过了精心设计和努力制作确实很好。做得非常出色。

No, you can't pull it off if you're not going deep in this. And then you don't want to distract people from their communication with all this additional animations. So you want them to be invisible, in a way. They create the feeling, but they don't create distraction. Yes. And in order to do that, you have to overcome even more challenges. For example, you mentioned this deletion effect message evaporates. If you do the animation, if you show the animation first, and then the message that is preceding the medility message that is going after the just delet message, move closer to each other, then it doesn't feel right.

不，如果你没有深入研究这个问题，是做不成的。而且你不希望通过这些额外的动画让人们在沟通时分心。因此，你希望这些动画在某种程度上是“隐形”的。它们能够营造氛围，但不能造成干扰。是的。为了实现这一点，你需要克服更多的挑战。比如，你提到这种删除效果，信息消失了。如果你先播放动画，然后接着是前一条信息和刚被删除信息后续的信息彼此靠近，这种感觉就不对劲。

It feels too long to imposing. So what you want to do is you want the message disappear while the messages around it go closer to each other to feel the resulting gap. And then you imagine what it involves. Redrawing the entire screen. So on top of this very complicated animation, you have to think about things like which kind of messages were there before it, after it just adds to complexity. And once again, all kinds of devices, all kinds of operating systems, all kinds of tablets, phones, desktop, all of that. But you know, once you accomplish it, it gives you this immense sense of pride because nobody is doing this.

这感觉太复杂、耗时了。因此，你要做的是让这条信息消失，而周围的信息则需要相互靠近填补空隙。然后，你需要想象这涉及到什么，比如重新绘制整个屏幕。因此，除了这种非常复杂的动画之外，你还需要考虑前后有哪些消息，这会增加复杂性。而且你还要面对各种设备，各种操作系统，各种平板电脑、手机、桌面电脑等等。但是，你知道，一旦你实现了它，它会给你带来极大的自豪感，因为还没有人这样做。

Nobody really cares. In a way, maybe they're right, not to care. Maybe nobody notices this. But there is something about it that feels wrong when such things are neglected because I understand that every day, tens of millions of people are on the world deleting messages. What kind of experience they get? Is this an experience that maybe even subconsciously inspires them? And makes their hearts sing even a little bit. Fills them with joy, lightens up their mood, even a little bit by 0.001%. Or is it something that is just basic?

没人真正关心。在某种程度上，他们可能有理由不去关心。也许没有人注意到这些事情。但当这样的事情被忽视时，总觉得哪里不对，因为我明白每天有数以千万计的人在删除消息。他们获得了什么样的体验？这种体验是否甚至在潜意识里激励了他们？有没有让他们心里稍微有一点轻松，心情稍微明亮一点，哪怕只有0.001%？还是说这仅仅是一件很普通的事情？

And I think if we can bring some value in people's lives, even through these subtle details, we have to definitely invest our time in it. And some joy, not just sort of value, value, like productivity, but joy. I think I see jobs, Johnny, I've talked about this. They will put so much love and effort in the design of everything, including things that weren't visible in the initial PC personal computers, because they believe that somehow, through osmosis, the users will be able to feel the love that the designers put into the thing.

我认为，如果我们能够通过一些细微的细节在人的生活中带来价值，我们就应该投入时间去做这件事。而这种价值不仅仅是生产力上的提升，还有快乐。我记得我和约翰尼谈过这个，他们在设计所有东西时都投入了大量的爱和努力，包括那些最初在个人电脑上看不见的地方，因为他们相信，通过潜移默化，用户能够感受到设计师在其中倾注的爱。

And you're absolutely right. I mean, it's not about deleting messages. I feel a little inkling of joy when I see that evaporation animation. It's just nice. I'm happier because of it. And like, so I feel that effort. And I think, you know, billion users feel that people like when other people care. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. And of course, there's the more sexy things like all the emojis and the stickers, the gifts, many of those are just their little like art pieces.

你完全正确。我的意思是，这不是关于删除消息的问题。当我看到消息消失的动画时，会感到一丝快乐。这感觉很好，只是因为这个小细节让我更快乐。我体会到了那种用心，我相信有十亿用户都能感觉到别人关心他们的时候的那种喜欢。对，就是这样。当然，还有更有趣的东西，比如各种表情符号、贴纸和动图，很多都像是小艺术品。

That's again, an intersection of art and technology, because you look at the stickers rich dog, launched way before most of this other apps three years and eight months ahead. I had what's app. Yes. But the stickers that what's happened end up launching three years and eight months after. And we're not the first version. Well, not was not really good because they just did regular gifts or web m videos, which were not based on vector graphics.

这又是艺术与技术的交汇。你看看这个"富狗"贴纸应用，它比大多数其他应用早推出了三年零八个月。我当时也在用WhatsApp。而WhatsApp推出贴纸的时间是"富狗"之后三年零八个月，但它们推出的第一版贴纸效果不太好，因为它们只是普通的GIF或WebM视频，并不是基于矢量图形的设计。

Well, we did is vector animations. Each of the stickers is only several kilobytes, sometimes maybe maximum 20, 30 kilobytes in size. But it says 180 frames. We were able to run them at 60 frames per second on all devices. And it's also a very challenging was a challenging thing to do. We had so much headache trying to make it work. Nobody even tried doing anything like this before us because it's crazily difficult. But as a result, you have this fluid animations. Yeah, this really nice user experience. Somebody sends you a sticker. You don't have to wait for it to load because it's so lightweight. And it starts moving instantly.

好吧，我们所做的是矢量动画。每个贴纸只有几KB，有时最大也就20到30KB。但它包含了180帧。我们能够在所有设备上以60帧每秒的速度运行这些动画。这确实是一项非常具有挑战性的工作，我们曾经费尽心思去实现它。在我们之前，没有人尝试过做这样的事情，因为它非常困难。但最终，你可以体验到流畅的动画效果，这带来了非常好的用户体验。当有人给你发送一张贴纸时，你不需要等待加载，因为它非常轻量，并且会立即开始动起来。

And then of course, it's not just engineering. You have to find designers that are able to create these stickers using vector graphics, which means they're based on curves, described by formulas, not just created as photographs with pixels. But when you find this people, again, we did competitions. But was not easy to assemble a team of artists, slash artists, artists, slash engineers, I would say, that are able to do something like this. This is a unique form of art. Then this allowed us to do a revolution in stickers.

当然，这不仅仅是工程问题。你还需要找到能够使用矢量图形创造这些贴纸的设计师。这意味着这些图形是基于曲线，由公式描述的，而不仅仅是像照片那样由像素构成。但当你找到这些人时，我们通过竞赛来实现。不过，要组建这样一个由艺术家兼工程师组成的团队并不容易，这种技能组合非常独特。这是一种独特的艺术形式。这使得我们在贴纸方面实现了一场革命。

Then another revolution in animated emoji that you can add into messages, custom animated emoji. I don't think anybody did that. I think tell them it's still the only one allowing users to do that because you can include a hundred of animated emoji in the message. And they will be animated and it will be moving. And your device won't crash. It's probably unnecessary and crazy. But we think somewhere in this intersection of art and engineering, true quality is created.

然后，我们迎来了动画表情符号的又一次革命，你现在可以在消息中添加自定义的动画表情符号。我不认为过去有人这样做过。我想说，他们可能仍然是唯一允许用户这样做的平台，因为你可以在消息中包含多达一百个的动画表情符号。它们将会是动态的，并且会动来动去，而你的设备不会因此崩溃。这可能显得没必要，甚至有些疯狂，但我们认为，正是在艺术与工程相结合的交汇处，才创造出了真正的高品质。

And then of course, more recently, we expanded into what we call telegram gifts, which are essentially blockchain based collectibles that you can demonstrate on your telegram profile so that they get social relevance. But you can also use them to congratulate your friends and close the one with their birthdays and other holidays. And that was received extremely well. Yeah, they can hold value. They can increase in value. You can trade them for that in that aspect. But to me, still, the vector graphics and it's not just simple graphics. It's incredibly intricate graphics.

当然，最近我们拓展了一个我们称之为“电报礼物”的项目，这些实际上是基于区块链的收藏品，你可以在你的Telegram个人资料上展示它们，从而获得社交认可。你也可以用它们来祝贺朋友和亲人生日或其他节日。这个项目受到了极大的欢迎。这些收藏品可以持有价值，甚至可能升值，你可以在这个方面进行交易。但对我来说，更重要的是这些矢量图形，并不只是简单的图形，而是非常复杂精美的图案。

So the vector makes it very efficient, but it also allows you to create maybe incentivizes the artist, enables them and incentivizes them to create super detailed intricate elements. And then the final result, like you would think it wouldn't matter, but the final result has like a lot of stuff going on. And it allows you to do the scale on arbitrary devices. And not now, it's like this little usually gifts from like back in the day and still in meme form are low resolution. And so that decent usually people don't have put details and intricate art into it.

所以矢量使得这一过程非常高效，但它也激励艺术家，使他们能够并激励他们创作出非常细致和复杂的元素。你可能会觉得最终的结果无所谓，但实际上最终的结果包含了很多内容。而且，这也让你能够在任意设备上进行缩放。现在的情况不同于过去的小礼物或仍以表情包形式出现的礼物，它们通常都是低分辨率的。因此，通常人们不会在其中投入太多细节和复杂的艺术创作。

But here with vector graphics, it's like like a million things going on. And it allows you to play with different animations like you showed me this thing where you send and you hold for a while on the send button. And so you can share with the person you sent a message to this animation that you've encoded. Like there's a bunch of stuff going on when they read the message. As we have a lot of features like that when we use this art to allow people to express themselves. And most people don't even know about this features. I didn't know about it. That was cool. That was cool.

在矢量图形的情况下，这里发生了很多事情。这种技术让你可以玩转不同的动画效果，比如你给我展示了一个功能：在发送按钮上按住一会儿，然后就可以通过编码好的动画与接收消息的人分享。他们读消息时会看到一连串的内容。我们在这类艺术中有很多这样的功能，让人们可以表达自我。但大多数人甚至不知道这些功能。我也不知道，发现后觉得特别酷。

The other application of the same technology is reactions on telegram. Because we made it a goal to make sure that people feel joy when they just send you like. Something so trivial is just adding a like to a message. It should be an action that you want to perform again and again and again. So another feature is on the more serious size entanglement corruption.

同样技术的另一个应用是在Telegram上的反应。因为我们的目标是确保人们在发送“点赞”时感到快乐。这个操作看起来很简单，就是给一条消息点个赞。我们希望这是一个你想要反复执行的动作。另一个功能则涉及更严肃的方面——量子纠缠的破坏。

You led the industry in that. It was launched one year and three months ahead. Can you speak to why you decided to add entanglement corruption? How you developed the corruption algorithm in the beginning? What was your thinking behind that? So at 2013 when we were launching telegram, we were aware of the serious issue with privacy that Edward Snowden made very clear. And we thought, yes, we were designing this product in a way that is already extremely secure.

你在这个领域处于领先地位。在那之前就提前了一年零三个月发布。你能谈谈为什么决定增加纠缠破坏这个功能吗？你最初是如何开发这个破坏算法的？你的想法是什么？在2013年，当我们推出Telegram时，我们意识到了爱德华·斯诺登明确揭示的隐私问题。我们认为，是的，我们在设计这个产品时已经将其设计得非常安全。

But we want to make sure that not even we can access user messages. And we understood very clearly that a bunch of people who were born in Russia don't necessarily inspire trust. So that's why we made total open source. So all our apps have been open available in GitHub since 2013. And then we added an encryption in our secret chat which what's app copied a few years after one year and three months ahead they just started to test it. They rolled it out I think 2016 which is three years after us.

但是我们希望确保即使是我们自己也无法访问用户信息。我们非常清楚地意识到，生于俄罗斯的人并不一定能让人放心。所以，我们选择了完全开源。自2013年起，我们的所有应用程序代码都在GitHub上公开可用。后来，我们在秘密聊天中添加了加密功能，WhatsApp在大约一年三个月后才开始测试，并在2016年推出这个功能，比我们整整晚了三年。

And the only reason I think the rest of the industry had to do it is because we set the standard. It was incredibly important back in the day and at the same time we realized certain limitations of entered encryption. So within that design, that architecture you can't support very large chat communities with consistent persistent chat histories you can't support huge one of many channels you'd have issues with maintaining the content. So we're also doing bots that have lots of incoming messages. Multiple device support becomes tricky. People will end up losing some of the documents they share. So we also see it's all our issues. And we ended up having this server hybrid experience where depending on your use case and your requirements you can choose the level of encryption that you want to have.

我认为整个行业不得不这么做的唯一原因是我们设定了标准。在过去，这非常重要，但同时我们也认识到端到端加密的某些局限性。在这种设计架构中，你无法支持非常大的聊天群体且保持一致的、持久的聊天记录，你也无法支持大量频道中的交流，因为维护内容会有困难。我们还在开发接收大量消息的聊天机器人。多设备支持变得复杂，用户可能会丢失某些共享的文档。因此，我们看到这些都是我们的问题。最后，我们开发了一种服务器混合体验，根据你的使用案例和需求，你可以选择所需的加密级别。

So that's why you chose to go opt in for end-end encryption. So the trade-off there that you're describing is between for people who really care about specific messages, extreme privacy on those messages. And usability like being able to sync across multiple devices, having groups that are 200,000 people. So all of those features that quality of life features is a trade-off between those in end-end encryption. So you lean towards letting users sort of enable end-end encryption for cases when they want to be super secure.

所以，这就是为什么你选择使用端到端加密。你所描述的权衡是在那些非常关心特定消息隐私的人之间，他们希望这些消息具有极高的隐私性。而可用性方面，比如能够在多个设备之间同步，或者建立多达20万人的群组，这些所有提升用户体验的功能与端到端加密之间是一种权衡。因此，你倾向于让用户在需要高度安全性的时候自行启用端到端加密。

Yes, and secret chat is not just end-to-end encrypted. There are certain limitations that are both their feature in the bug. For example, you can't screenshot them. You can't forward any document, any message from them, which is not necessarily something you need when you're trying to get some work done. And you're just communicating with your team on a project. So it became very clear to us that there are different needs here. And if you try to combine both in one type of chat, you will end up losing a lot of utility.

是的，秘密聊天不仅仅是端到端加密。它还有一些限制，同时可以视为它的功能或缺陷。例如，你不能截图，也不能转发其中的任何文档或消息。当你在与团队协作某个项目时，这些功能可能不是你需要的。因此，我们很清楚，不同的需求是存在的。如果试图将这两种聊天合并在一起，最终你会失去很多实用性。

We are telling we don't use any collaboration tool for teamwork. We use Telegram to build Telegram. So we felt instantly when we were trying to switch to say, secret chats to share large documents and try to get work done. It was just not adapted for it. At the same time, if you were really paranoid, you think, I don't want to be screenshot it. I don't want to have any leaks. I don't even trust Telegram. I only trust code. Secret chats. Other best option. I believe it is the most secure means of communication today.

我们想表达的是，我们在团队合作中并没有使用任何协作工具。我们使用Telegram来开发Telegram。因此，当我们尝试切换到使用秘密聊天来分享大型文件和完成工作时，我们立刻感受到这种方式并不适合。同时，如果你非常担心安全问题，可能会想，我不希望被截屏，不想有任何信息泄露，甚至不信任Telegram，只信任代码。那么，秘密聊天是最好的选择。我相信它是当今最安全的通信方式。

And we should say that there's a lot of other aspects to this that are important. For example, Telegram is the only app that has open source reproducible builds from both Android and iOS. Why is this important? So you need reproducible builds in order to verify that the app really does what it claims. Really encrypts data in a way that it is described on its website. For that, you need to make your apps open source for any researchers to have a look at it. So Telegram has been open source since 2013.

我们应该指出，这其中还有很多重要的方面。例如，Telegram 是唯一一个在 Android 和 iOS 平台上都提供开源可复现构建的应用。这为什么重要呢？因为你需要通过可复现构建来验证这个应用确实如其所说的那样工作，真正按网站描述的方式加密数据。为了做到这一点，你需要让应用开源，以便研究人员可以查看。因此，Telegram 从2013年开始就是开源的。

Apps like WhatsApp have never been open source, so you don't really know what they're doing and how exactly they encrypt your messages. What's important here, though, is to understand whether the version of the app that you download from the app store corresponds exactly to the source code that you can view on GitHub. And for that, you need reproducible builds. As you said, Telegram is the only popular messaging app that does that. We allow people to make sure both Android and iOS that the source code of Telegram on GitHub and the app you're actually using is the same app.

像WhatsApp这样的应用程序从来都不是开源的，所以你并不了解它们具体在做什么以及它们是如何加密你的消息的。不过，这里重要的是要理解你从应用商店下载的应用程序版本是否完全与GitHub上的源代码一致。为此，你需要可重现的构建过程。正如你所说，Telegram是唯一一个这样做的热门消息应用程序。我们允许人们在Android和iOS上确认GitHub上的Telegram源代码与他们实际使用的应用程序是同一个。

I think it's incredibly important, not just to gain people's trust, but just to stay transparent and open about it. When I make this claim that Telegram's secret chats are the most secure way of communicating, I really mean it, because I haven't seen any fact contradicting this claim. At least among the popular messaging app, you say WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage. None of them have reproducible builds on both iOS and Android. None of them had at least at the same level put so much effort into making sure that algorithms that you use in order to encrypt data are not algorithms that have been handed to you by some agency in order to create a honeypot.

我认为这非常重要，不仅仅是为了获得人们的信任，还为了保持透明和开放。当我说 Telegram 的密聊是最安全的交流方式时，我是认真的，因为我没有看到任何事实与这一说法相矛盾。至少在流行的消息应用中，比如 WhatsApp、Signal、iMessage，没有一个在 iOS 和 Android 上都有可复现的构建。它们也没有在确保用于加密数据的算法不是由某个机构提供的陷阱算法上，投入同样多的精力。

At least from what I know about our competitors, I don't think they went through the same process. So we should say that the entirety of the software stack in Telegram is a thoughtful scratch internally to Telegram. So we're talking about not just the encryption, but everything running on the servers. So the servers are built out, the hardware and the software are all done internally, which is one of the ways you reduce the attack surface on the entire stack that handles the messages.

至少根据我对竞争对手的了解，我认为他们没有经历相同的过程。因此，我们可以说Telegram的软件堆栈完全是由Telegram内部精心打造的。从加密技术到服务器上运行的一切，都是如此。这意味着服务器的构建、硬件和软件都是内部完成的，这是减少处理信息的整个堆栈的攻击面的一种方法。

It does make it more secure, because if Snowdon's relations taught us anything, is that very often open source tools, modules, libraries that they use by everybody ended up having certain flaws and security issues that make it software vulnerable. It's also a way to make sure you're doing things the most efficiently possible. But it's extremely difficult to do that. You really have to have exceptional talent unit team to achieve this level of thoroughness to go to a low level of coding that allows you to recreate from scratch database engines, web servers, entire programming languages. Because the programming language we use on the backhand to develop the API for the client apps is also entirely built by our team. So we're moving, minimizing the reliance on open source libraries is extremely difficult. As most companies say they rely on open source libraries. Well, I wouldn't say we completely independent from that. We use Linux on the backhand. There's no way of avoiding it for us at the moment. But for the most part, we are much more self-reliant than most other apps.

这确实提高了安全性，因为如果我们从斯诺登的事件中学到了什么，那就是许多被广泛使用的开源工具、模块和库常常会有某些缺陷和安全问题，使软件容易受到攻击。另外，这也是确保你以最高效率工作的方式。但要做到这一点非常困难。你真的需要一个具备非凡才能的团队，才能做到如此细致，达到可以从头开始重建数据库引擎、网络服务器、完整编程语言的低级编程水平。因为我们团队完全自主开发了客户端应用程序API背后的编程语言。所以要减少对开源库的依赖是非常困难的。大多数公司都表示他们依赖开源库。我不否认我们完全独立于它。在后台我们使用Linux，目前我们无法避免这一点。但在很大程度上，我们比大多数其他应用程序更加自给自足。

You mentioned that was Snowdon. A long time ago, you went to work together with him. Perhaps the share expertise to understand the full realm of what it takes to achieve cyber security. What do you make of his case? What lessons do you learn from what he has uncovered? Maybe even broadly, what impact does his work had on the world, do you think? Well, the main lesson is not everything what it seems. And you would discover, and this is something I found quite shocking at the time, that a lot of people who you thought were security and cryptography experts ended up being agents of the NSA in one way or the other promoting flawed encryption standards. You wouldn't end up discovering that your government that was supposed to be limited in how it can surveil its people actually doesn't consider itself that limited. And that was very valuable for the world to understand.

你提到那个人是斯诺登。很久以前，你曾和他一起共事。也许你们分享了专长，能全面理解实现网络安全所需要的一切。你如何看待他的事件？从他揭示的内容中，你学到了哪些教训？甚至更广泛地说，你认为他的工作对世界产生了什么影响？最主要的教训是，很多事情并不像表面看起来的那样。你会发现（我当时对此感到非常震惊），很多你以为是安全和密码学专家的人，实际上以某种方式是美国国家安全局的特工，他们推广了有缺陷的加密标准。你不会想到，本该受到限制以监控公民的政府，实际上并不认为自己受到那么多限制。对于世界来说，这是一种非常有价值的认识。

I guess it also can be a lesson demonstrating that we humans don't get their balance right. So 9-11 created a situation when the government had to respond and it responded, but it overreacted. It ended up in deroting certain basic rights and freedoms, including the right to privacy, because the government always wants to increase its powers, and the government always tries to do it at the expense of citizens. You have the situation when the cure is worse than the disease. I think it was incredibly brave to do what Edward did. I didn't get to work with him, whoever he was in person. Keep in touch, we sometimes communicate, but we're not close. I still think what he did is lottable. I hope someday we meet.

我觉得这也可以作为一个教训，说明我们人类并没有找到合适的平衡。 9-11事件迫使政府做出反应，但他们反应过度。最终，一些基本权利和自由被削弱，包括隐私权，因为政府总是想扩大权力，而且往往是以牺牲公民为代价。结果是“治病”的方法比“疾病”本身更糟糕。我认为爱德华的举动非常勇敢。我没有机会与他共事，尽管我们偶尔联系，不过关系不密切。我仍然认为他的所作所为值得赞赏，希望有一天能见到他。

You yourself have faced the full force of various governments, intelligence agencies. Is there any intelligence agency you're afraid of, any government you're afraid of? I think they're all equally, should be equally afraid of, or equally not afraid of. Anyway, it's not that this intelligence service can kill you and the other can't kill you. They all can kill you. I guess they all can kill me one way or the other, but it's a matter of whether I'm afraid of death. This goes back to the beginning of our conversation, I think, multiple times. So you're in general fearless in the face of the pressure. There will be a very bold statement, but I proved to be quite stress resilient. And it's not that you don't have fear. You can't have fear, but you'll overcome this fear. I don't think there is anything at this point that can happen to change the way I am.

你自己曾经面对过各种政府和情报机构的全力打压。有没有哪个情报机构或政府是你害怕的呢？我认为它们都应该是同样值得害怕，或者说都不值得害怕。不管怎样，它们都能致你于死地。可以说，无论是哪个情报机构，都有办法对付我，只是看我是否害怕死亡。这个问题与我们对话开头讨论的主题多次有关。总的来说，你在压力面前是无所畏惧的吗？这可能是一个非常大胆的声明，但事实证明我对压力的抵抗力相当强。这并不是说你没有恐惧，而是你不能让恐惧控制你，你要克服这种恐惧。我不认为目前有任何事情可以改变我的态度。

So you went through a lot from 2011 to 2014, government pressure that you refused to give into that led you to create Telegram and let go of VK. And then in 2018, Russia and Iran decided to ban Telegram. That was another example of pressure. Can you take me through that saga in 2018? So in 2018, Telegram started to become popular. I think we had something like 200 million users. And it increasingly became popular in places like Iran and Russia. And now that countries were sometimes people have something to hide from the government. In Iran, people used Telegram to protest against the government. That is huge channels that they would use to organize the protests. And eventually the government couldn't keep up. They decided to ban Telegram. People would still keep using it though using VPNs. They didn't help. The government invested a lot in coming up with their own messaging app. They had several teams competing for the title of the National Iranian Messaging app. All the SIPs failed.

所以，你在2011到2014年间经历了很多，其中包括你拒绝屈服于政府压力，并因此创办了Telegram，也放弃了VK。然后在2018年，俄罗斯和伊朗决定封禁Telegram，这又是一次压力的例子。你能和我讲讲2018年的那段经历吗？在2018年，Telegram开始变得流行，我记得我们有大约2亿用户。在伊朗和俄罗斯等地，Telegram的受欢迎程度逐渐增加。在这些国家，人们有时需要隐藏一些不想让政府发现的事情。在伊朗，人们使用Telegram来组织反政府抗议，建立了庞大的频道用于组织这些活动。最终，政府无法阻止这种情况，就决定封禁Telegram。但人们通过使用VPN继续使用Telegram，这些措施并没有奏效。政府还投入大量资金开发自己的消息应用程序，组建了多个团队竞争“国家伊朗消息应用”的称号，但这些尝试全都失败了。

People still prefer Telegram. Interesting, Iran banned Telegram, but WhatsApp wasn't banned. Or at least they banned WhatsApp soon after. At the same time, starting in mid-2017 or late 2017, Russia demanded that Telegram hands them the encryption keys. They thought these things exist. Something that would allow them to read messages of every person on Telegram. Or at least every person on Telegram in Russia. And we told them it's impossible if you have to ban us. And this is what they ended up doing in spring 2018. And that was quite fun because they were trying to block our IP addresses, but we were prepared for that. And we came up with this technology that allowed us to rotate IP addresses, replacing them with new ones. Every time the sensor blocks our existing addresses. And then it was completely automated. We had millions of IP addresses. We would be burning through them.

人们仍然更喜欢使用Telegram。有趣的是，伊朗封禁了Telegram，但WhatsApp却没有被禁，或者至少是在WhatsApp很快之后就被禁了。与此同时，从2017年中期或2017年末开始，俄罗斯要求Telegram交出加密密钥。他们以为这些密钥是存在的，可以让他们读取每个Telegram用户的信息，至少是俄罗斯的用户。而我们告诉他们，这是不可能的，如果你们非得封禁我们就去做吧。结果在2018年春天，他们真的这么做了。而这件事非常有趣，因为他们试图阻止我们的IP地址，但我们对此已有准备。我们开发出一种技术，可以轮换我们的IP地址，每次审查封锁现有地址时，就会自动替换为新的地址。这完全是自动化的，我们有成百万的IP地址可供使用，帮助我们不断更换。

We set up this movement called digital resistance when system administrators and engineers all around the world both inside and outside Russia could set up their own proxy servers. And their own IP addresses for children to rely on in order to bypass censorship. We ended up spending I think millions of dollars on that. And as a result, the sensor got crazy there. There were ban IP addresses and largest subnets of IP addresses and huge subnets which resulted in a weird situation where parts of the country's infrastructure started to go down. Like people were trying to pay for groceries in the supermarkets and nothing would work because the Russian sensor blocked too many IP addresses. And some of these subnets were used to host other unrelated services. Even some Russian social networks and media got affected. Banks. So they had to start being more selective in how they combat our anti-sensorship tools.

我们发起了一场名为数字抗争的运动，旨在让全球各地，包括俄罗斯境内外的系统管理员和工程师能够建立自己的代理服务器。他们可以提供自己的IP地址，让儿童可以依赖这些地址来绕过审查制度。我们为此投入了数百万美元。结果，审查变得疯狂，许多IP地址和大范围的子网被封锁，导致国家的部分基础设施开始瘫痪。比如，人们在超市里试图支付购物款，但支付系统却无法运作，因为俄罗斯的审查封锁了太多的IP地址。而其中一些子网还用于托管其他无关的服务，甚至一些俄罗斯社交网络和媒体也受到了影响，还有银行。因此，他们不得不开始更加有选择性地对抗我们的反审查工具。

The biggest resistance we got at the time was from Apple. Apple didn't allow us to update Telegram in the App Store saying for at least four weeks that we have to come to an agreement with Russia first. We said it's not possible. They said we will allow you to push your update for Telegram worldwide except for Russia. We didn't want to do that. Almost was help. At some point I said maybe this is the only way. Maybe we should leave the Russian market. Stop allowing users from Russia to download the app from the App Store which should mean it's over. We helped organize certain protests in defense of Telegram and privacy and freedom of speech in 2018 in Moscow. There was hilarious people flying paper airplanes. I saw that.

当时我们遇到的最大阻力来自苹果公司。苹果不允许我们在 App Store 中更新 Telegram，至少四个星期内，他们都表示我们必须先与俄罗斯达成协议。我们说这不可能。他们则表示可以允许我们在全球更新 Telegram，但俄罗斯除外。我们并不想这样做。几乎没有其他办法。后来我开始想，也许这是唯一的办法。也许我们应该放弃俄罗斯市场，停止允许俄罗斯用户从 App Store 下载应用，这可能就意味着结束。我们曾在 2018 年组织了一些支持 Telegram 及其隐私和言论自由的抗议活动，这些活动在莫斯科举行。当时有趣的是有人放飞纸飞机，我也看到了。

And at some point I decided I have to make a statement. I have to say that Apple sided with the sensor. We are trying to do the right thing here but without Apple we can't do much. Because people can't download your app anymore. I published it in my channel and then New York Times picked it up with the picture of the protesters flying paper airplanes. Apple was criticized in the story. And I thought well Apple should probably come back to the right side of history here. And I waited for one day and two days. In the meantime since we've been unable to update Telegram for more than a month it started to fall apart because the new version of iOS came out and it made the old versions of Telegram obsolete. Some features that used to work stopped working and users all over the world started to suffer. People that had nothing to do with Russia from other parts of the world experienced issues with Telegram.

在某个时刻，我决定我必须发声。我必须说苹果站在审查的一方。我们正在努力做正确的事情，但没有苹果的支持，我们做不了太多。因为人们无法再下载你的应用了。我在我的频道上发布了这件事，随后《纽约时报》也报道了，并配上了抗议者放飞纸飞机的照片。故事中批评了苹果公司。我想苹果应该站回历史正确的一边。我等了一天，两天。与此同时，因为我们已经无法更新Telegram超过一个月，而iOS的新版本推出后，使得旧版本的Telegram无法正常工作。一些曾经有效的功能停止运行，全球的用户开始受到影响。即使是和俄罗斯毫无关系的其他地区的人们也遇到了使用Telegram的问题。

So it was really serious and I said to my team you know what if by 6 pm today I think it was the Friday. Nothing changes and Apple doesn't allow us to push the version of Telegram through. Let's just forget about the Russian market. Let's keep going because the rest of the world is more important. It's sad but what can we do? Which by the way removes all the people that want to protest, all the people that want to talk in Russia and removes their ability to have a voice in the most popular messaging app in that part of the world. Yes magically 15 minutes to the time I was planning to remove Telegram from the Russian app store in order to proceed globally. Apple reached out to us and said it's okay. Your update is approved and we managed to keep playing this hide-and-seek game with the sensor, bypassing censorship through digital resistance.

这件事情真的很严重，我对团队说：“你们知道吗？如果今天晚上6点前，（我记得那是一个星期五）情况没有改变，苹果不允许我们更新Telegram版本，那我们就放弃俄罗斯市场吧。继续前进，因为世界其他地方更重要。这很遗憾，但我们能做什么呢？”这意味着那些想在俄罗斯抗议、想发表言论的人将无法在这款最受欢迎的消息应用上发声。然而，在我计划从俄罗斯应用商店下架Telegram、以在全球推进的15分钟前，苹果联系了我们，说更新已经获批。这让我们能够继续与审查玩捉迷藏，通过数字抗争来规避审查。

In Iran it was a little bit different because we realized it would have been too expensive to try to come up with all this IP addresses and in addition it was not clear whether we wouldn't be in violation of the sanctions regime. So we did something else. We created an economic incentive for people who would set up proxy servers for Telegram. Any person, say an Iranian engineer could come up with a proxy server, just tribute its address among users in Iran and whoever connected through the proxy of this person would be able to see a pinned chat and add place there by the system administrator the owner of the proxy. And this is how you can monetize the proxy. So it created this market which resulted in Iranians fixing their own problem and as a result we kept millions or maybe tens of millions of Iranian users up until this day I think Telegram is still bending around today but we probably have something like 50 million people who are lying on the Tehran from that country.

在伊朗，情况有些不同，因为我们意识到，要获取所有这些IP地址的成本太高，而且我们也不确定这样做是否会违反制裁规定。因此，我们采取了另一种方法。我们为那些愿意为Telegram设置代理服务器的人创造了经济激励。任何人，比如一个伊朗工程师，都可以建立一个代理服务器，并将其地址分发给伊朗的用户。通过这个人的代理连接的用户会看到一个置顶聊天，由代理服务器的拥有者，即系统管理员，放置广告。这样一来，代理服务器所有者就可以通过这个方法赚钱。这种方式创造了一个市场，使得伊朗人能够自己解决问题。结果是，我们至今仍保留了数百万或甚至数千万的伊朗用户。我认为Telegram仍在继续发展，而我们可能有大约5000万伊朗用户依赖我们。

So the people find a way around. People find a way around. That's ingenious. That's really great to hear. I have to ask you about this. After having spent many days with you I learned of something you've never talked about. At the time I have not talked about to this day that there was an assassination attempt on you using what appears to be poisoning in 2018. I think to me it showed the seriousness of this fight to uphold the freedom of speech for everyone. For all people of Earth that you're doing I have to say it would mean a lot to me if you tell me this story.

人们总能找到办法绕过去。这真是太聪明了，听到这样的事情真的很令人高兴。我必须向你询问一件事情。在花费了很多时间和你一起之后，我了解到了一件你从未提及的事情。直到今天，我都没有提到过，那就是在2018年，有人试图通过看起来像是下毒的方式对你进行暗杀。在我看来，这显示了维护言论自由的斗争的严峻性。为了地球上的所有人，你做的这些事情对我而言意义重大。如果你能告诉我这个故事，我会非常感激。

Well this is something I never talked about publicly because I didn't want people to freak out. Particularly at the time it was spring 2018 we were trying to raise funds for Tom a blockchain project working with all kinds of VCs and investors. In the meantime we had a couple of countries trying to ban Telegram so it was exactly the best moment for me to start sharing anything related to my personal health but that was something that is hard to forget that you know I never folio I believe I have perfect health. I very rarely have headaches or bad cough. I don't take pills because I don't have to take pills and that was the only instant in my life when I think I was dying.

好吧，这件事我从未在公开场合讨论过，因为我不想让大家恐慌。尤其是在2018年春天，那时我们正试图为Tom这个区块链项目筹集资金，与各种风投和投资者合作。同时，那时有几个国家试图封禁Telegram，所以那并不是一个适合我分享个人健康问题的好时机。不过，那段经历让我难以忘记。我一向认为自己身体健康状况很好，很少头痛或咳嗽，更不用吃药了，因为我不需要。但那是我人生中唯一一次感觉自己快要死去的时候。

I came back home, opened the door of my townhouse, the place I rented, I had this weird neighbor he left something for me there on the door. And one hour after when I was already in my bed, I said I was living alone, I felt very bad. I felt pain all over my body. I tried to get up and go to the bathroom. But while I was going there I felt that functions of my body started to switch off. First the eyesight and hearing. Then I had difficulty breathing. Everything accompanied by very acute pain, heart, stomach or blood vessels. It was it's a difficult thing to explain but one thing I was certain about is yeah this is it.

我回到家，打开我租住的联排别墅的门。我有一个很怪异的邻居，他在我门上留了些什么。一个小时后，当我已经躺在床上时，我感到非常不舒服，感觉全身疼痛。我试图起身去浴室，但走去的途中感受到身体机能开始失灵。先是视力和听力，然后呼吸变得困难。一切都伴随着剧烈的疼痛，不管是心脏、胃，还是血管。很难解释清楚，但我可以确定的是，这就是终点。

You say you were going to die. Yeah this is it because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see anything who was very painful. I think it's over. I thought well I had had a good life, I managed to accomplish a few things and then it collapsed on the floor but I don't remember it because the pain covered everything. I found myself on the floor the next day, it was already bright. And I couldn't stand up, I was super weak. I looked at my arms, my body, blood vessels were broken all over my body. Something like this never happened to me. I couldn't walk for two weeks after. I stayed in my place and I decided not to tell most of my team about it because again I didn't want them to worry but it was tough.

你说你快要死了。是的，当时我觉得这就是终点了，因为我无法呼吸，也看不见任何东西，特别痛苦。我想一切都结束了。我心想，我这一生过得还不错，也完成了一些事情。之后，我就倒在地上了，但我不记得具体过程，因为疼痛覆盖了一切。我发现自己第二天还躺在地上，天已经亮了。我无法站起来，非常虚弱。我看着自己的手臂和身体，血管都破裂了。这种事从来没有发生在我身上。之后的两周我都无法走路。我呆在家里，决定不告诉团队的大部分成员，因为我不想让他们担心，但那段时间真的很艰难。

Did that make you afraid of the road you're walking? Meaning all the governments, all the intelligence agencies, all the people, like we mentioned it's like you're playing a video game. You started with VK where you're just trying to build a thing that scales and all of a sudden you find out there's DDoS attacks attacking the security, the integrity of the infrastructure and then you realize there's politics and then you realize there's geopolitics and all of these forces are interested in controlling channels of communication and you're just a curious guy who created a platform for everybody on the earth to talk and also you realize there's a lot of people attacking you.

这让你对自己所走的道路感到害怕吗？意思是就像我们提到的，所有政府、情报机构、各种各样的人，你好像在玩电子游戏。你最初在VK的创业阶段只是想建立一个可扩展的东西，结果突然发现有DDoS攻击试图破坏基础设施的安全和完整性，然后你意识到有政治问题存在，接着是地缘政治，所有这些力量都想控制通信渠道，而你只是一个好奇的家伙，创建了一个让全球人们交流的平台，同时你也意识到，有很多人在攻击你。

How did that change your view that make you more scared of the world? Interesting not at all. If anything I felt even more free after that. It wasn't the first time I thought I was going to die. I had an experience when I assumed something bad is going to happen to me a few years before that. Also in relation to my work. No, after you survived something like this, you feel like you were living on bonus time. So in a way you died a long time ago and every new day you get is a gift, is a bonus.

这件事如何改变了你的看法，使你对世界更加害怕呢？其实并没有让我感到害怕。事实上，我经过那件事后，反而感到更加自由。这也不是我第一次以为自己会死去。几年前，我就遇到过一次让我以为自己会遇到不测的经历，而且还和我的工作有关。在经历了这样的事情之后，你会感到生活像是在"享受多出来的时间"。从某种程度上来说，你早已"死去"，而每一天的新生活都是一种赠予和额外的馈赠。

Yes. And the first time you're referring to is that what that have to do with the complexity that was happening with the pressure from the government on DK and then you had to figure out the increasing pressure and yet to figure out what to do and they you understood that you're losing control of DK at that moment. The first of this instance was in December 2011. December 2011 you had this huge protest on the streets of Moscow. They didn't trust in the integrity of the election results to the state Duma in Russia.

是的。你提到的第一次事件是与当时发生的复杂情况有关，当时政府对DK施加了压力，你必须想办法应对越来越大的压力，并意识到自己正在失去对DK的控制。这个事件的第一次发生是在2011年12月。当时，莫斯科街头爆发了大规模抗议活动，抗议者对俄罗斯国家杜马选举结果的公正性表示怀疑。

And in November 2011 I still lived in Russia running VK. There was no telegram. So the government demanded that we take down the opposition groups of Navalny from VK that had hundreds of thousands of members and that were used to organize this protest. And I have very publicly refused to do that. I just decided it's not the right thing to do. People have the right to assemble and they mocked the prosecutor who handed me that demand that put out a scan of it and next to it a photo of a dog and a hoodie with it, it's done out.

2011年11月，我仍然住在俄罗斯，负责运营VK。当时还没有Telegram。因此，政府要求我们从VK上删除纳瓦尔尼的反对派群体，这些群体有数十万成员，并被用来组织抗议活动。我公开拒绝了这样的要求。我认为这样做不对。人们有集会的权利，他们嘲笑向我提出这个要求的检察官，把他递给我的文件扫描件放在网上，并在旁边放了一张穿连帽衫的狗的照片来讽刺他。

And I said this is my official response to the prosecutors who progressed to ban the position groups. It was very funny at the moment. But then I had armed policemen trying to get into my apartment. And I thought about many things at that moment. I asked myself, did I make the right choice? And I came to the conclusion that I made the right choice. And I asked myself, what would be the next thing that would logically follow from this?

我说，这就是我对推进禁止职位团体的检察官们的官方回应。当时我觉得这件事非常可笑。但随后有全副武装的警察试图闯入我的公寓。那一刻，我思考了很多事情。我问自己，我做出了正确的选择吗？我得出的结论是，我做出了正确的选择。然后我又问自己，接下来合乎逻辑的下一步会是什么？

And I realized they're probably going to put me in prison. So, what am I going to do about it? I asked myself. And I told myself, I'm going to starve myself to death. It's something that probably many men have. They're ready to die for other people or certain principles they strongly believe in. I'm not alone here. I guess Edward Snowland was ready to die as well. Was it one of the people like a son?

我意识到他们可能会把我关进监狱。所以，我要怎么办呢？我问自己。然后我告诉自己，我会绝食到死。很多男人可能都会有这样的想法，他们愿意为其他人或自己坚信的某些原则献身。我并不孤单。我想爱德华·斯诺登（Edward Snowden）也做好了这样的准备。他是像儿子一样的角色吗？

Also, at that moment, I realized there's no way to communicate securely. I need to tell my brother was going on. They're probably going off to him. How do I tell him? Without betraying him. Because in 2011, remember what SAP was already there? I think they launched it in 2009. But it had zero encryption. All messages were plain text and transit, meaning that even your system administrator, let alone your carrier, had access to your messages.

在那一刻，我意识到没有办法进行安全的交流。我需要告诉我弟弟现在发生的事情。他们可能要去找他。我该怎么告诉他，而不出卖他呢？因为在2011年，还记得SAP当时已经存在了吗？我记得他们好像是在2009年推出的。但是它没有任何加密措施，所有的信息都是以明文形式传输的，这意味着不仅你的系统管理员，就连你的运营商也能访问你的信息。

It was only after telegram started this push for encryption that this other apps suddenly remembered that it probably wasn't their DNA. As what's founders famously stated. But it must have been a dormant gene in 2011. 2011, there was no way to send a message in secure way. And I also told myself, if I'm going to survive this, I'm definitely launching a secure messaging app. Somehow, it ended up not being too bad.

只有在 Telegram 开始推动加密技术之后，其他应用才突然意识到这可能不是它们的本质属性，正如某些创始人所著名表示的那样。但这在2011年可能是个休眠的基因。在2011年，没有办法以安全的方式发送消息。我当时也告诉自己，如果我能挺过来，我肯定会推出一个安全的消息应用。结果，好像也没有想象中那么糟糕。

I was summoned to the prosecutor. Answered some silly questions. Fewer questions that I had to answer more recently in the French investigation. But it was the beginning of the end. It was clear that there's no way I'm going to be allowed to run VK the way I wanted it to run. There was the moment I backed my backpack and just started to wait. Just they moved to hotel and realized any day I can leave the country.

我被传唤到检察官那里。回答了一些无聊的问题。比我最近在法国调查中要回答的问题还少。但是这却是个转折点。很明显，我再也不能按照我想要的方式管理VK了。那一刻，我收拾好了我的背包，开始等待。我搬到了酒店，意识到随时都可能离开这个国家。

I kept running VK. I started to design telegram and assembling the team. But I knew my days in Russia were numbered. Well, first I really have to say for myself from I think millions, maybe hundreds of millions, maybe the entirety of Earth. Thank you for putting your life on the line in those cases. I think freedom of speech is fundamental to the flourishing of humanity.

我继续运营VK，同时开始设计Telegram和组建团队。但是我知道我在俄罗斯的日子屈指可数了。首先，我真的要替我自己，还有可能是成百万或多达数亿的人，甚至是全人类，表达感激之情：感谢你在这些情况下冒着生命危险。我认为言论自由对于人类的繁荣至关重要。

And it depends on people willing to put everything on the line for their principles. So thank you. Quick pause. I need a bathroom break. All right, we're back. And once again, we had a super long day. And the fact that you would spend many hours with me. Thank you for powering through. We got this. It's already late at night. Thanks for doing this.

这取决于人们是否愿意为自己的原则付出一切。所以，谢谢你。稍等，我需要去趟洗手间。好了，我们回来了。今天又是漫长的一天，感谢你花了这么多时间和我在一起。谢谢你坚持下来。现在已经是深夜了，谢谢你做到这些。

Okay. So there is increasing indication, I think, from things I've seen online that Russia is considering banning telegram. First of all, do you think this might happen and what effect do you think this might have on humanity? And in general, what do you think about this? You can definitely happen. As you said, there are certain indications.

好的，我在网上看到越来越多的迹象表明俄罗斯正在考虑禁止使用Telegram。首先，你认为这真的会发生吗？如果发生了，你觉得这对人类会有什么影响？总体来说，你怎么看待这件事？这种情况肯定有可能发生，正如你所说，确实有一些迹象显示这一点。

There have been certain test attempts to partially ban it. Telegram is no longer accessible in parts of Russia, such as Dagestan. And it will be incredibly sad if Russia restores its attempts to ban telegram because currently it's been used by its population for all kinds of purposes, not just personal communication or economic business activities.

有些测试尝试部分封禁它。Telegram在俄罗斯的一些地区，例如达吉斯坦，已经无法访问。如果俄罗斯恢复封禁Telegram的尝试，这将非常令人难过。因为目前俄罗斯人使用Telegram的用途非常广泛，不仅仅是用于个人交流或经济活动。

But also it's the only platform which allows the Russian people to access independent sources of information. If you think about media outlets such as BBC or any other non-Russian source of information, they're only accessible in Russia through telegram in the form of telegram channels. The websites are banned. Some other social media sites are banned.

但它也是唯一一个让俄罗斯人民获得独立信息来源的平台。想想像BBC这样的媒体或其他非俄罗斯的信息来源，它们在俄罗斯只能通过Telegram频道访问。相关网站已被封禁，一些其他社交媒体也被禁止使用。

And as you said, there are indications that Russia is planning to migrate users from existing messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram to their own homegrown tool which would of course be fully transparent to the government and wouldn't allow voices independent from the government to express themselves. It's certainly an alarming trend. We see this attempts in countries that are not famous for protecting freedom of speech but also increasingly in countries that have been known to protect freedoms.

正如你所说，有迹象表明俄罗斯计划将用户从现有的通讯应用程序（如WhatsApp和Telegram）转移到他们自己开发的工具上，这个工具当然会对政府完全透明，不会允许独立于政府的声音表达自己。这无疑是一个令人担忧的趋势。我们看到这种尝试不仅发生在那些以不保护言论自由而闻名的国家，而且越来越多地出现在那些以保护自由而著称的国家。

And this creates this vicious circle because in a way, European countries trying to fight freedom of speech under pretext that sound legitimate such as combating misinformation or election interference. They create precedence and they legitimize restrictions to freedom of speech which then in turn be used by authoritarian regimes. And they would say in places like China or Iran that they're not doing anything different. It's a norm now through strict voices that don't go in line with the mainstream narrative.

这就形成了一个恶性循环，因为某种程度上，欧洲国家试图以看似正当的理由，比如打击虚假信息或选举干扰，来限制言论自由。它们创造了先例，并使限制言论自由合法化，而这种行为又会被威权政权所利用。在像中国或伊朗这样的地方，他们会说他们并没有做什么不同的事情。通过严格限制不符合主流叙事的声音，这似乎已经成为了一种常态。

That's sad because one of the things that makes our life interesting is this abundance of different viewpoints of different people that we get to experience. You limit the freedom of people. You inevitably disilleraid economic growth, level of happiness, the way people can contribute to the society, the way people can express themselves. I personally think it would be a huge mistake to ban a tool like Telegram.

这很令人遗憾，因为让我们的生活充满趣味的原因之一就是我们能够体验到来自不同人的多种观点。如果限制人们的自由，就会不可避免地影响经济增长、幸福水平、人们对社会的贡献方式以及个人表达自己的方式。我个人认为，禁止像Telegram这样的工具将是一个巨大的错误。

In any country, particularly large countries such as Russia, because the Russian people are incredibly talented and resilient people. There are among the first to start utilizing some of these recent innovations that Telegram implements. There are the early adopters. I say them, and also the Americans, perhaps other people from Eastern Europe like Ukrainians and Southestations, there among the first people to start using any you addition that you belong to. They're incredibly hungry for innovation.

在任何国家，尤其是像俄罗斯这样的大国，因为俄罗斯人民是非常有才华和毅力的人，他们常常是最早开始使用Telegram实施的一些新创新的人群之一。他们是早期采用者。我这样说他们，还有美国人，可能还有来自东欧的其他人，比如乌克兰人和东南欧人，他们都是最早开始使用新技术的人。他们对创新有着强烈的渴望。

So all that said, there's as part of the propaganda, and in general, there's a tax on you all over the place. There's misinformation. I've read a bunch of things that are, I think, in a systematic way lying about you, lying about Telegram from all angles. Why do you get a tax so much by everybody? We're protecting freedom of speech. It's not a way to make it a little France.

综上所述，作为宣传的一部分，总的来说，你们到处都受到攻击。存在大量错误信息。我读过很多关于你们的内容，我认为这些信息是系统性地对你们，对 Telegram 进行多角度的诋毁。为什么你们会受到如此多人的攻击？我们是在保护言论自由，而不是在把它变成一个小小的法国。

Because you would inevitably find yourself in a situation where you would be protecting the freedom of the opposition to the current government in any country to express themselves. Then the initial reaction and the very basic instinctive reaction of any government would be to say, or our position shouldn't be trusted and allowed to express themselves because they're actually our agents of some foreign rival, a geopolitical force that wants to destroy our country.

因为你不可避免地会处于这样一种情况：你要保护任何国家现任政府的反对派表达自己的自由。这时，任何政府的第一反应和最基本的本能反应就是会说，这些反对派的立场不值得信任，不应该被允许表达，他们实际上是我们的一些外国对手——一个想要摧毁我国的地缘政治力量的代理人。

This is something that every authoritarian regime in history used to take. Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, Maoist China, did always use the same trick that say, we need to limit your freedom of speech because this people who are masquerading as a position are actually the agents of this other country that wants to take over. That's why dear citizens forget about their freedoms.

历史上每一个威权政权都使用过这一招。斯大林时代的苏联、纳粹德国、毛泽东时期的中国都说过同样的话：我们需要限制你的言论自由，因为这些伪装成反对派的人实际上是想要接管我们国家的外国势力的代理人。因此，亲爱的市民们，请忘记他们的自由吧。

Now increasingly you see similar attempts in three countries. The initial instinct from President Macron's team when they're confronted with some footage, for example, the footage of his wife slapping him would be to say it's all fake, Russian imagery, something that is inaccurate, something that is misinformation or interference. And then when they are confronted with more information they have to refine the narrative.

现在，你会越来越多地看到在三个国家中出现类似的尝试。当法国总统马克龙的团队面对一些影像时，比如有关他妻子打他的影像，他们最初的反应会是声称这些都是假的，是俄罗斯制造的图像，是不准确的，是误导或干预的信息。但当他们面对更多信息时，就不得不调整他们的说法。

So when you find yourself in a situation that you're running this platform like Telegram and then you protect the freedom to express ideas that don't go in line with the mainstream narrative, you often find yourself in this crossfire. When the forces and power will say that you must be working with some foreign government that they don't like, inevitably they would say that, oh, if you're protecting this voices, it's not right.

当你发现自己运营一个类似Telegram的平台时，并且你保护那些与主流叙述不一致的观点的自由表达时，你往往会陷入这种夹缝中。当权力和势力指责你与他们不喜欢的外国政府合作时，他们常常会说：“哦，如果你在保护这些声音，那是不对的。”

They love you when you're protecting the freedom of speech in a country that is far from them or better yet in a country that is their geopolitical rival, they praise you for that. But then they have this bipolar attitude when you do the same in their own country. And they say, no, no, no, no, no, we loved you for protecting freedom of speech but not here, not in my backyard. We don't need it here. We're all right.

当你在一个离他们很远的国家，或者更好是在他们的地缘政治对手的国家保护言论自由时，他们会称赞你，爱戴你。但是，当你在他们自己的国家做同样的事情时，他们的态度却变得截然不同。他们说，不不不，我们是因为你在别处保护言论自由才爱你的，但在这里，在我自己的国家就不需要了。我们不需要这种自由，我们这里一切都好。

We have free press. And then you will find yourself in this weird spot then. Ukrainians say you work for the Russians, the Russians say you work for the Ukrainians. And all this kiss of rena is something that we had to deal with for some time because it's a very easy way to attack you. At some point you don't understand where it is coming from.

我们有新闻自由。然而，你会发现自己处在一个奇怪的境地：乌克兰人说你为俄罗斯人工作，而俄罗斯人又说你为乌克兰人工作。这种混乱的局面是我们已经处理了一段时间的，因为这是一个非常简单的攻击方式。有时候你甚至都搞不清楚这些指责到底是从哪里来的。

Is it all competitors? We must give credit to all competitors if it's their invention to launch these kind of rumors because just certain point they must have realized they can't compete technologically on the product side so they must do something like this or is just governments launching these rumors trying to discredit the platform, trying to scare the citizens away from it because they understand that their power and grip of their own country is in danger as long as they allow a pro-freedom platform to operate.

这都是竞争对手的做法吗？如果这种谣言是他们制造的，我们必须承认竞争对手的厉害，因为可能在某些时候他们意识到在产品技术上无法竞争，于是就采取这种策略。或者这些谣言是政府散播的，目的是诋毁这个平台，吓唬市民远离它，因为他们明白，只要允许一个支持自由的平台运营，他们对国家的控制和权力就会受到威胁。

And through all of this we should say over and over that you are simply preserving the freedom of speech for all people of earth no matter what they believe as long as they don't call for violence and as long as they're not doing some of the criminal activity that we discussed including terrorists organizing but other than that it doesn't matter what they believe left-wing or right-wing you're just preserving their freedom of speech.

在这一切过程中，我们应该反复强调，你只是在维护全世界所有人的言论自由，不论他们的信仰是什么，只要他们不宣扬暴力，也没有参与我们所讨论的一些犯罪活动，包括恐怖主义组织。除此之外，他们无论是左翼还是右翼，这都不重要，你只是维护他们的言论自由。

You think people of Ukraine, people of Russia, people of Iran, people of all over the world understand that despite the propaganda against you? I think people are smart. Every time I meet somebody from one of these countries you mentioned in real life people recognized me in the street, see here in Dubai. They come over, they seem incredibly grateful and understanding. The propaganda in each of these countries would tell them a number of things but they learned to discount it. That's why there is so happy the tell-room exists is because the way they can understand the world around them is to receive conflicting mutually exclusive viewpoints from sources that hate each other and try to understand what really is through.

你认为乌克兰、俄罗斯、伊朗及世界各地的人们是否在宣传的影响下能理解你的立场？我认为人们很聪明。每次我在现实生活中遇到你提到这些国家的人，比如在迪拜的街头，人们认出了我，他们显得非常感激和理解。虽然这些国家的宣传可能告诉他们各种不同的信息，但他们已经学会质疑这些宣传。这也是为什么他们对这个平台的存在感到高兴，因为他们能够通过这个方式，从相互对立、互相敌视的信息来源中获得多元视角，从而更好地理解周围的世界。

Because there is no such thing as an unbiased source of information. When the war in Ukraine started in 2022 I instantly realized that the tell-room is going to be used to spread propaganda by both sides. And I didn't want the tell-room to be used as a tool for war and I said and I posted it publicly, I suggested maybe we should just suspend the activity of all politics-related channels in both countries for the time of the war. Maybe we shouldn't have channels in these two countries.

因为没有所谓的无偏见的信息来源。2022年乌克兰战争爆发时，我立刻意识到聊天室会被双方用来传播宣传。而我不希望聊天室被用作战争的工具，因此我公开表示并提议，也许我们应该在战争期间暂停两个国家所有与政治相关频道的活动。也许我们不应该在这两个国家设立频道。

And then interestingly people from both countries revolted against this. They told me what people in Ukraine and in Russia that I don't get to babysit them and decide for them what sources of information that they have to be granted access to. They have grown ups that can make these decisions for themselves. They understand that there is a lot of propaganda. They learn to see through this propaganda. They learn to be able to tell truth from lie.

有趣的是，两国的人们都对此表示反对。他们告诉我，无论是乌克兰人还是俄罗斯人，我都无权替他们做主，不应决定他们能接触哪些信息来源。他们是成年人，可以自己做出这些决定。他们明白有很多宣传，而他们也学会了看穿这些宣传，分辨真相和谎言。

And in this time of war it was particularly valuable for them to receive as much information as possible because their relatives, their friends who are getting affected and still getting affected. They want to understand what was going on. At that moment I realized people are smart, people get it, people can see through it. If you ask most people in any of these countries do you agree that access to telegram should be restricted for whatever reason they would say no. They're hunger to have a voice. They need a voice and they need a place to share their opinion securely.

在这个战乱时期，获取尽可能多的信息对他们来说尤为重要，因为他们的亲友正在受到影响，情况仍在继续。他们希望了解正在发生的事情。在那一刻，我意识到人们很聪明，他们明白情况，对事情有自己的判断。如果你询问这些国家的大多数人，他们是否同意以任何理由限制使用Telegram，他们会说不。他们渴望有发声的机会，他们需要一个安全的平台来分享自己的观点。

I have to ask in the question of leadership in the Leap Point interview. The journalist said that you're often compared to Elon Musk. You highlighted some interesting nuances around that. You're quite different that Elon runs several companies at once while you only run one. Elon can lean more on the emotional side while you deliberated deeply before acting. Can you expand on this?

在Leap Point的采访中，我必须提到领导力的问题。记者说你常常被拿来和埃隆·马斯克作比较。你提到了一些有趣的不同之处。比如，埃隆同时管理着好几家公司，而你只管理一家公司。埃隆可能更容易依靠情感来决策，而你则是在深思熟虑后才采取行动。你能详细谈谈这个话题吗？

Also there's an interesting point that he made that everybody's weakness is also a strength. Everybody's strength is also a weakness. There's a dual nature to all our characteristics. So on the topic of Elon what have you learned from his style of leadership? What do you respect about him? First of all, I don't think there is such thing as a negative personal trade. In most cases, our bad traits and our good traits are the same trade or at least have the same source.

他还提出了一个有趣的观点，那就是每个人的弱点也是他们的优点，每个人的优点同样也是他们的弱点。我们所有特性都有其双重性。那么，谈到埃隆·马斯克，你从他的领导风格中学到了什么？你尊重他什么？首先，我认为不存在绝对消极的个人特质。在大多数情况下，我们的缺点和优点是相同的特质，或者至少是源于相同的根源。

Of course there are some extreme examples but I'd say 99 percent of people, if you analyze the character, their bravery can be seen in recklessness and other situations. Depending on circumstances, you would see exactly the same personality trade and it will be either a good thing or a bad thing because humanity is perfect as a whole. Each of us is different for a reason. We have evolved to be different to complement each other's abilities so that together we're invincible.

当然，也有一些极端的例子，但我想说，如果你分析大多数人，大约99%的人，他们的勇敢可能表现为冒失或者其他情况。根据具体的环境，你会发现同样的性格特征有时是优点，有时却是缺点，因为人类整体来说是完美的。我们每个人都有不同之处，这是有原因的。我们进化得各有不同，以便互相补足彼此的能力，这样我们就能无往不胜。

And even if you take a person as complicated as Elon, I believe that certain traits that Elon demonstrates that people criticize about him are also the sources of his strength. For example, his emotionality is derived from the fact that he cares about issues deeply and he's willing to start as many wars and as many fights as it takes to change the world in the direction that he thinks is right. He also seems to be able to extract motivation from this war isn't personal conflicts which is again not something to be underestimated. At a certain point in life of a successful entrepreneur, the question of motivation starts to be the primary question. If we are talking about the richest person in the world and the most famous entrepreneur in the world, you have to wonder how does he motivate himself?

即使是像埃隆这样复杂的人，我也相信人们批评他的一些特质，其实也是他力量的来源。例如，他的情感强烈，源于他对问题的深切关心，他愿意不惜一切代价进行各种斗争，以推动世界朝他认为正确的方向发展。他似乎还能从这些斗争和冲突中获取动力，这一点同样不容小觑。对于成功企业家来说，在人生的某个阶段，动力的问题开始成为最重要的问题。如果我们谈论的是世界上最富有和最著名的企业家，你不得不思考，他是如何激励自己的呢？

And if starting a war on X, debating certain issues, what becomes a personal with other CEOs criticizing them, if these activities help Elon to innovate and start new projects, he should be doing more of it. There's nothing wrong in being non-agreable. Actually, it's one of the main traits of a successful entrepreneur, not to agree with things. Every time somebody like Elon, but there's no somebody like Elon, it's just Elon. I think at least from the entrepreneurs I know, and I personally interacted with his unique in the sense that he keeps launching new things, running them in parallel, and he doesn't seem to be stretched to thin, or some people think he is, but he manages to still demonstrate success in all of most of his endeavors.

如果挑起对某个事物的争议、辩论一些问题，或者与其他CEO发生个人争执能帮助Elon进行创新和开启新项目，那他应该多做这类事情。与众不同并没有什么错。事实上，不随大流是成功企业家的主要特征之一。每一次有像Elon这样的人，或者更准确地说，根本没有其他人像Elon，他是绝无仅有的。从我认识和亲自接触过的企业家来看，他在不断开发新事物、同时管理多个项目时的独特之处在于，他似乎没有因为手头事务太多而分身乏术。虽然有些人认为他可能是在透支自己，但他仍然能在他的大部分事业中取得成功。

So again, you can criticize Elon for being emotional, but would he be the same person without this? I doubt that. And the incredible team that he's motivated to, there's an element of that, which he's spoken about the team at Telegram, assembling a team of A-players, as we've talked about, is a skill in itself, and that's also a big part of the leaders that we've discussed, is what judged in part by the team you assemble. And one of the necessary features to enable that is to be ready, to be unpleasant. You have to be ready to insult some people, if they work, it's inferior. You have to be ready to fire them without remorse. So in order to be an efficient, a great entrepreneur, and enrich the world of innovations, you have to do unpleasant things. Most people will shy away from it.

所以，再次提到，虽然你可以批评埃隆过于情绪化，但如果没有这些情绪他还是同一个人吗？我对此表示怀疑。他激励的那些非凡团队中，也有他自己谈论过的因素，比如像在Telegram那样组建顶尖人才团队，这是一种能力。而我们讨论过的领导者中，一个重要的评判标准就是他们组建的团队。有一个必要的特点就是要做好准备迎接不愉快的事情。你必须准备好在发现有人工作能力欠佳时直言批评，并毫不留情地解雇他们。所以，为了成为一个高效的、优秀的企业家，推动世界创新，你必须做一些令人不快的事情。大多数人会对此望而却步。

And in a certain sense, entrepreneurs sacrifice their peace of mind in order to contribute to the world around them. And the Elon is a great example of that. I have to ask you about the big picture of Telegram. We've already talked about the fact that you own 100% of it. And there's a lot of, on the business side of it, the business structure of Telegram is fascinating. You've invested hundreds, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars of your money, as far as I know you take a salary of $1.1. One dear, one third of that, one third of a dollar. And in 2024 is the first time Telegram was profitable. So one of the interesting questions is here that we could talk for many hours about. But I'd love to get a high view picture.

在某种意义上，企业家为了对周围世界做出贡献而牺牲了他们的内心平静。埃隆·马斯克就是一个很好的例子。我想问您关于 Telegram 的宏观情况。我们已经讨论过您拥有 Telegram 100% 的股份。在商业方面，Telegram 的商业结构非常引人注目。据我所知，您已经投入了数亿甚至数亿美元的资金，而您的年薪只有1.1美元，1美元加三分之一美元。直到2024年，Telegram才首次实现盈利。这是个很有趣的话题，我们可以深入讨论很多个小时。但我希望能了解一个整体的概况。

So you've left what I understand, what I think is a huge amount of money on the table, best taking to your principles. For example, not doing advertisement that's based on user private data, which basically every social media company does. So the only advertisement that Telegram does is based on channels and groups, based on the topic, not the private data of the individuals. And the other thing is, which is also gangster and incredible, is you don't do a newsfeed, which is the most addictive and engagement-inducing aspect of social media, which feeds the very kind of addictive downside of the internet, the distraction, the engagement, drama, farming aspect that we've talked about in the very beginning, that you try to resist, that you think is damaging the human mind at scale.

所以，你坚持原则，放弃了我认为是巨额资金的机会。比如，你们没有像几乎所有社交媒体公司那样，做基于用户隐私数据的广告。Telegram 的广告仅基于频道和群组的话题，而不是个人的隐私数据。另外，令人敬佩且不可思议的是，你们没有设置新闻推送功能，而这正是社交媒体中最让人上瘾、最能提高用户参与度的部分。这种功能助长了互联网中的负面效应，如过度分心、沉迷于戏剧化内容等，这正是你们试图抵制并认为对人类心智造成大范围损害的。

So anyway, that's just speaking to the fact that you're leaving a lot of money on the table. So how the hell are you able to be profitable? What are the ways that Telegram makes money? Yeah, we had to innovate a lot in order to reach a point where we are profitable without having to resort to dubious business activities involving exploiting personal data of users. Something that most of our competitors do. Because money has never been the primary goal, it's not for me. When I sold the remaining share of my first company, and I had to do it below market price because I didn't leave Russia completely without any pressures, you know.

所以，总而言之，这就是说你在某些方面错过了很多赚钱的机会。那么，你是怎么实现盈利的呢？Telegram是通过哪些方式赚钱的？是的，我们不得不进行大量创新，才达到在不涉及利用用户个人数据等可疑商业活动的情况下实现盈利的程度。大多数竞争对手都这么做。但对我来说，赚钱从来不是最主要的目标。我出售了第一家公司剩下的股份，而且不得不以低于市场价的价格出售，因为你知道，我并不是在完全没有压力的情况下离开俄罗斯的。

I reinvested the vast majority of everything in Telegram. Telegram is an operation that is losing money for me personally, and never I didn't extract more from Telegram than I invested in it, and I've sold a single share. But I also didn't want to sell Telegram, so how do you reach a point when you're profitable without sacrificing your values? One of the ideas we explored was a subscription model, but only for certain additional features. We wanted to keep all the existing features free, and just add more business-related tools or tools for advanced users that they would have to pay for, say, four or five dollars a month. It was quite unprecedented at the time. It wasn't considered a viable option for messaging apps to do that.

我把绝大部分资金重新投资到Telegram中。Telegram对我个人来说正在亏钱，我从未从中提取的钱超过我的投资，而且我从未出售过一股股份。但我也不想出售Telegram，那么如何在不牺牲价值观的情况下实现盈利呢？我们考虑过的一个方法是订阅模式，但只针对于某些附加功能。我们希望保持所有现有功能免费，只是添加一些商业工具或高级用户工具，这些工具需要用户每月支付四五美元。在当时，这种做法是很少见的。在当时大家不认为消息应用可以采取这种方式。

We launched the premium subscriptions for Telegram in 2022, and now we have over 15 million paid subscribers. This is some very significant recurring revenue. We would receive more than half a billion dollars from premium subscriptions alone this year, and it's growing fast. For that, we had to innovate a lot. We included over 50 different features into the premium package. And then how do you make an app that is already more powerful than any other messaging app on the market? Even more useful so that people would be ready to pay for this extra. That wasn't easy. That took a lot of effort.

我们在2022年推出了Telegram的高级订阅服务，现在我们已经拥有超过1500万付费用户。这成为了一个非常重要且可观的经常性收入。今年，我们仅仅通过高级订阅服务就能获得超过5亿美元的收入，而且这个数字还在快速增长。为了实现这一点，我们进行了大量创新。我们在高级套餐中加入了超过50种不同的功能。如何让一款已经比市面上其他消息应用程序更加强大的应用变得更加实用，以至于人们愿意为这些额外功能买单？这并不容易，需要付出大量的努力。

And you can't see adding features. We can't see adding features. It's actually fun to watch, just the rate of adding, and some of the subtle updates to improvements, expansions of polls, for example. Yeah, so you keep improving the existing features and adding new ones. And every time when you add a new feature, you don't want to clutter their app. So in a way, they're not in your way, they're invisible. That's not an easy thing to do. And most of the features may be I not even known to the majority of our users, but when you need them, they're there. So premium is one source of our revenue.

你看不到功能的增加。我们也看不到功能的增加。其实观察这一过程很有趣，尤其是增加的速度，以及一些微妙的功能改进和扩展，比如投票功能的扩展等。是的，你不断改进现有功能并新增功能。每次添加新功能时，你都不想让应用变得杂乱。因此，这些功能就像是“隐形”的，不会妨碍你。这并不容易做到。而且，大多数功能可能对大多数用户来说并不明显，但当你需要它们时，它们就在那里。高级服务是我们收入的一个来源。

We also have ads, but they're context-based, not targeted. Of course, we leave probably 80% of value on the table, because we're not ready to engage in all those practices, exporting personal data. Just to be clear, targeted ads is what most social media companies, most tech companies that do any kinds of advertisement do, and that's the kind of advertisement that uses personal data from users. Just to clarify, at least at 80%, there's a lot of money. Of course, because we would never use, for example, your personal messaging data or your context data or your metadata, your activity data, to target ads. It's sad that it became synonymous with the internet industry, this kind of exploitation. But we are happy with the fact that we managed to make Telegram profitable despite that.

我们也有广告，但它们是基于内容的，而不是针对特定用户的。当然，这意味着我们可能放弃了大约80%的价值，因为我们不愿意参与那些导出个人数据的做法。需要澄清的是，大多数社交媒体公司和从事广告业务的科技公司都进行针对性的广告，这种广告使用用户的个人数据。至少有80% 的利润空间，这显然是很大的一笔钱。当然，我们绝不会使用您的个人消息数据、上下文数据、元数据或活动数据来进行广告定向。遗憾的是，这种数据利用行为已经成为互联网行业的代名词。但即便如此，我们很高兴能让 Telegram 实现盈利。

We're also experimenting a lot with blockchain-based technologies. We're the first app to allow people to directly own their username and their digital identities using smart contracts and NFTs, removing Telegram from the picture. So, for example, Telegram cannot confiscate your username from you. It's impossible. We do a lot of things related to the ecosystem of Telegram. We have a thriving mini-app platform, millions of mini-app developers launching their own bots and applications. So, a lot of people are making millions of dollars on the Telegram platform.

我们也在大量尝试基于区块链的技术。我们是第一个通过智能合约和NFT让用户直接拥有自己用户名和数字身份的应用，这样就将Telegram从中移除了。例如，Telegram无法从你那里收回你的用户名，这是不可能的。我们做很多与Telegram生态系统有关的事情。我们有一个活跃的小程序平台，成千上万的小程序开发者在上面发布自己的机器人和应用。因此，很多人在Telegram平台上赚到了数百万美元。

Yes, we enable them to receive payments from the users through the in-app purchase mechanism provided by Apple and Google, which I think was the first attempt of this kind to allow that both on iOS and Android and on a big platform, so that third-party developers of mini-apps, which are basically websites, are so deeply integrated into Telegram that you can't tell whether they're standalone or they're part of their overall experience. And by providing this payment option, we're able to extract a commission from these transactions, but it's a very low commission presently, it's 5%.

是的，我们让他们通过苹果和谷歌提供的应用内购买机制从用户那里接收付款。我认为这是第一次尝试在iOS和Android平台上实现这一点。这样，第三方开发者制作的小应用程序——基本上就是网站——能够如此深度地整合到Telegram中，以至于你无法分辨它们是独立的还是整体体验的一部分。通过提供这一支付选项，我们可以从这些交易中抽取佣金，但目前的佣金非常低，仅为5%。

So, we have greedy here, who want people to succeed in building these tools for our users. We understand that mini-apps bring us users. The more users we have, the more successful and relevant Telegram becomes. We need third-party developers. I think at this point, Telegram gives developers by far the most powerful tools to create. Plus, there's a BOD API, and I mean, you have to tell me about the ton blockchain and the crypto ecosystem available through Telegram.

所以，我们这里的目标是让大家成功地为我们的用户构建这些工具。我们明白，小程序会为我们带来更多用户。用户越多，Telegram就越成功和有影响力。我们需要第三方开发者。我认为，目前Telegram提供了最强大的工具给开发者们。此外，还有一个BOD API，还有你得告诉我关于通过Telegram提供的Ton区块链和加密生态系统。

So, what is ton, a key of the open network blockchain? Ton is a blockchain technology that we initially developed in 2018 and 2019, and we started to develop it because we needed a blockchain platform to be integrated deeply into Telegram because we believe in blockchain. We think it's one of the technologies that enable freedom. But at the time, if you look at Bitcoin, if you look at Ethereum, they were not scalable enough to cope with the load that our hundreds of millions of users would create. They would just become congested.

那么，什么是开放网络区块链的关键：TON呢？TON是一种我们在2018年和2019年开始研发的区块链技术。我们之所以开始研发它，是因为我们需要一个可以深度整合到Telegram中的区块链平台，因为我们相信区块链技术。我们认为这是支持自由的一项技术。不过，当时如果你看看比特币和以太坊，它们的扩展性都不足以应对我们数亿用户可能带来的负载，结果就是会变得非常拥堵。

And I asked my brother, can we create a blockchain platform that would be inherently scalable so that no matter how many users or transactions there are, it would split into smaller pieces, which we call shortchains and would still process all transactions. And he thought for a few days and said, yes, it's possible, but it's not easy. And we started building that. We ended up succeeding in developing that technology, but we couldn't release it because the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States was unhappy with the way the fund raised for ton was conducted. So, we had to abandon the project and the open source community to cover, luckily because we constantly conducted those contests for third-party developers, there was a thriving community around town, which now stood for the Open Network as opposed to its prior name Telegram Open Network.

我问了我哥哥，能否创建一个天生具备可扩展性的区块链平台，这样无论用户数量或交易量有多大，它都能分裂成较小的部分，我们称之为"短链"，仍旧能处理所有交易。他考虑了几天后说，这是可行的，但并不容易。于是我们开始开发这个项目。最后，我们成功地研发出了这项技术，但却无法发布，因为美国证券交易委员会（SEC）对TON的募资方式不满意。于是我们不得不放弃这个项目。不过幸运的是，开源社区接手了这个项目，因为我们一直举办第三方开发者竞赛，所以社区非常活跃。如今，这个项目被称为开放网络（Open Network），而不再是之前的名字“Telegram开放网络”（Telegram Open Network）。

And so this project got eventually launched without our direct involvement. And it's thriving now because everything we do, like I said, this blockchain-based tokenized, user names, telegram accounts are all based on ton and its smart contracts. It's the only way for third-party developers and creators to withdraw the funds that they earn through our revenue sharing programs. For example, with channel owners, we do a 50-50 split of ad revenues. It's also the only way to transact on Telegram, for example, if you want to buy ads on Telegram, you should use ton. All the new things we'll launch, for example, let's say, gifts that we mentioned earlier, which you can define as a reinvented socially relevant NFT integrated into a billion-user ecosystem, but at the same time available on chain, transferable, which you can own directly, also based on ton.

这个项目最终在没有我们直接参与的情况下启动了。它现在很成功，因为就像我之前提到的，我们的一切工作，包括基于区块链的代币化用户名、Telegram账户，都是基于Ton及其智能合约。对于第三方开发者和创作者来说，他们通过我们的收入分享计划赚取的资金，只有通过这种方式才能提取。例如，对于频道所有者，我们的广告收入采取五五分成的模式。这也是在Telegram上进行交易的唯一方式，比如说，如果你想在Telegram上购买广告，你需要使用Ton。我们即将推出的所有新功能，例如之前提到的“礼物”，你可以理解为是在一个拥有十亿用户生态系统中重新定义的、切合社交的新型NFT，但它可以在链上获得、转移，并且你可以直接拥有，这些也都是基于Ton的。

Incredibly fast-growing space, we only launched them half a year ago. And now as a result of this Telegram gift, ton has become, I think the largest of the second largest blockchain in terms of daily NFT trading volumes. So, yeah, like you mentioned, it is a layer 1 technology as opposed to being built on top of the theorem, a Bitcoin, and it's able to achieve the scale and the speed of transactions that's needed for something like Telegram. And like you also mentioned, the gifts you recently launched are some Snoop Dogg gifts. Is there going to be some other celebrities in the pipeline? Yeah, I'm a big fan of Snoop, and that's why when they reach out, it's just to do something together. So, let's launch some Snoop-related gifts, and it was really fun.

这个领域增长速度极快，我们仅在半年前推出了它们。现在，由于Telegram的这项礼物，ton已成为日常NFT交易量最大的或第二大的区块链。我想，就像你提到的，它是一种Layer 1技术，而不是构建在以太坊或比特币之上，并且能够实现像Telegram这样需要的重要规模和交易速度。正如你提到的，你们最近推出了一些与Snoop Dogg相关的礼物。未来还会有其他名人的合作吗？是的，我是Snoop的忠实粉丝，所以当他们联系到我时，我们就一起做了这个项目。因此，我们推出了一些与Snoop相关的礼物，非常有趣。

We managed to sell 12 million worth of gifts within 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Oh, there you go. I even got a view, but yeah. After this, we have many requests from many really high-profile influencers that in a way, are lining up. So, from my perspective as a fan, it's just interesting to see what kind of art you create for any kind of celebrities at these musicians, because the Snoop gifts are all just going back to our previous conversation. It's a beautiful piece of art that encapsulates certain memes, certain aspects of Snoop that everybody knows. These cultural icons that he represents. That's cool. That's just.

我们成功在30分钟内卖出了价值1200万的礼物。30分钟。哦，看吧。我甚至还有一个观看，但对，接着是，我们收到了许多知名网红的合作请求，他们可以说是排着队来的。从我作为粉丝的角度来看，看到你为这些音乐明星和名人创作什么样的艺术作品是很有趣的，因为那些关于 Snoop 的礼物让人回想起我们之前的谈话。那是一幅美丽的艺术品，囊括了人们众所周知的一些关于 Snoop 的梗和特质。他所代表的那些文化偶像。这真是太酷了。就是这样。

And the detail, the incredible detail of the art of the individual gifts, it's just incredible. And each of this gifts is scalable because it's vector-based. It references certain points and snoops, creative biography, and each of them has countless different versions. We had to create over 50 distinctive versions of each. And then each individual piece is unique because it also has unique backgrounds, unique icons, and the background. It's something that we reinvented because we didn't like the old school and FTs. First of all, they were not relevant socially because, okay, you have an NFT. Where do you demonstrate it? In a telegram, a telegram gift is there next to your name. It's part of your digital identity on telegram.

每件礼物的艺术细节都令人惊叹，每一个清晰可见，都让人难以置信。每件礼物因为是基于矢量的，所以可以按比例放大。它们参考了一些特定的点和创意传记，因此每件作品都有无数不同版本。我们不得不为每种作品创造超过50种独特版本。每件作品都是独一无二的，因为它们还有独特的背景和图标。我们进行了创新，因为我们对旧版NFT不满意。首先，它们在社交上没什么意义，因为拥有NFT后，在哪里展示呢？在Telegram上，你的NFT可以作为礼物出现在名字旁边，成为你在Telegram上的数字身份的一部分。

And then you can create collections of gifts and show it off on your profile page. But it also, the other thing that we wanted to reinvent is the aesthetic part of it. Most NFT is just ugly. And they're not based on any other sophisticated technology. So, what we did with snoops gifts, I think, represents an example of beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and at the same time very accurate in terms of references to this specific artist's biography mixture between art and technology, which I think is quite rare. I'm quite proud of it. I think it's a new trend, a new phenomenon. It's only a half a year old. So, let's see where it goes.

然后，你可以创建礼物收藏，并在你的个人主页上展示。但我们也想重新定义其美学部分。大多数NFT都不好看，而且没有基于任何复杂的技术。所以，我们在“Snoop礼物”中所做的，我认为是一个结合了艺术与技术的美丽、赏心悦目的例子，同时非常准确地参考了这位特定艺术家的传记。我对这个作品感到非常自豪。我认为这是一个新趋势，一种新现象。它只有半年的历史，我们拭目以待它的发展方向。

We're going to select our next influencer or artist to be part of it. Hey, listen, I'm really proud. I got a snoop gift next to my name. And I figured out that you can add even more by pinning them. It's like a cool little art icon. We didn't expect it, by the way. We just had a lot of fun launching these things. And then we realized that one of the first collections we should we sold each piece at something like the five dollars. And then the minimum price of any items in these collections currently is something like ten thousand dollars. And it keeps going up. So, I was quite surprised with the reception. I realized when you are trying to monetize social media platform in a way that is consistent with your values, you're forced to find ways that benefit your users. Not exploit them. People love these gifts. People love the fact that they can congratulate a person close to them with something valuable. And at the same time, something beautiful.

我们正在选择下一个加入我们的影响者或艺术家。嘿，听着，我真的很自豪，我的名字旁边有一个“snoop”礼物。我发现，你可以通过固定它们添加更多。这就像一个很酷的小艺术图标。顺便说一下，我们并没有预料到，我们只是很享受地推出了这些东西。然后我们意识到，我们应该卖的第一批收藏品中的每件价格大约是五美元。现在这些收藏品中任何物品的最低价格大约是一万美元，而且还在不断上涨。所以，我对这样的反响感到很惊讶。我明白，当你尝试在社交媒体平台上实现盈利，同时与自己的价值观一致时，你必须找到让用户受益的方法，而不是利用他们。人们喜欢这些礼物，喜欢用一些既有价值又美丽的东西来祝贺身边的人。

Also, some people make a business out of it, which is funny. They resell this gifts. We recently met a guy who earned several million dollars just from buying and selling gifts. It's a real market. It's a real market. It's just something that he did in a few months. And last year, when we launched many new features for the mini apps on Telegram and the payments options for them and the other monetization options, the same guy earned twelve million dollars from mini apps.

有些人还把这当成一门生意，这很有趣。他们转卖这些礼物。我们最近遇到一个人，他通过买卖礼物赚了几百万美元。这是一个真实的市场。他只是用了几个月的时间就做到这一点。去年，当我们为Telegram上的迷你应用推出许多新功能及支付和其他盈利选项时，同一个人通过迷你应用赚了1200万美元。

And then several people selling the hotel, I earned ten million dollars, three million dollars just in a month, single handedly. Sometimes they would have a team of two, three people. So, whenever I hear stories from people who were able to build businesses on top of Telegram, this makes me incredibly proud. And many apps include games. They include like tools, services of any kind. It's an app within the ecosystem of Telegram. Let me ask you about crypto in general.

然后，有几个人在出售酒店的时候，我一个月内单枪匹马赚了一千万美元，其中三百万美元是在一个月内赚到的。有时候，他们会有两三个人组成的团队。因此，每当我听到有人能够在Telegram平台上建立起生意的故事时，我感到非常自豪。很多应用程序里包括了游戏，也包括各种工具和服务。这些应用程序都属于Telegram的生态系统。让我问你一个关于加密货币的问题。

So, you've been an early supporter of crypto currencies, Bitcoin. You've bought in to Bitcoin early on. You kept buying. Maybe you could speak to the reason why you kept buying Bitcoin. Do you think Bitcoin will go to a million dollars? Do you think it'll keep increasing? Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies. How was the big believer in Bitcoin since more or less the start of it? I got to buy my first few thousand of Bitcoin in 2013 and I didn't care much. I think I bought it at the local maximum. It's something like seven hundred dollars per Bitcoin. And then just through a couple of millions there and a lot of people after Bitcoin later next year went down somewhere close to three hundred two hundred.

因此，你一直是加密货币和比特币的早期支持者。你很早就买入了比特币，并持续地购买。也许你可以谈谈为什么你一直在买比特币。你认为比特币会涨到一百万美元吗？你认为它会持续增长吗？比特币和其他所有加密货币。我差不多是在比特币刚出现的时候就对它非常看好。我是在2013年才买到我第一批几千美元的比特币，当时不怎么在意。我想我是在高点买入的，大约每比特币七百美元。之后再投了几百万美元，很多人在次年比特币跌到接近三百或二百美元的时候才开始关注。

Started to express their sympathy to me. They say, well, you're a prooffeller. You made this horrible mistake investing in this new thing, but don't feel bad about it. We still have some respect for you. And my response to them, well, I don't care. I'm not going to sell it. I believe in this thing. I think this is the way money should work. Nobody can confiscate your Bitcoin from you. Nobody can censor you for political reasons. This is the ultimate means of exchange. And again, I'm now talking about Bitcoin, but it relates to cryptocurrencies in general.

他们开始对我表示同情。他们说，你是个专业人士。你在这个新项目上投资失误，但别为此感到难过，我们还是尊重你的。而我回应他们说，我不在乎，我也不会卖掉它。我相信这件事，我认为这才是货币应该运作的方式。没有人能没收你的比特币，也没有人能因为政治原因审查你。这是最终极的交换方式。我虽然在谈论比特币，但这也适用于加密货币整体。

So I have been able to fund my lifestyle, so to say, from my Bitcoin investment, some people think if I'm able to rent nice locations or fly private, it's because I somehow extract money from Telegram. Like I said, Telegram is a money-losing operation for me personally. Bitcoin is something that allowed me to stay afloat. And I believe it will come to a point where Bitcoin is worth one million dollars. Just look at the trends. The governments keep bringing money like no tomorrow. Nobody's bringing Bitcoin. There is a predictable inflation and then it stops. It's a certain point. Bitcoin is here to stay. All the fiat currencies remains to be seen.

所以可以说，我一直依靠比特币投资来维持自己的生活方式。有些人认为我能租到好地方或乘坐私人飞机，是因为我从 Telegram 中获取了资金。但正如我所说，对我个人而言，Telegram 是一个亏损的项目。比特币帮助我保持了收支平衡。我相信，比特币的价值最终会达到一百万美元。看看趋势就明白了，政府一直在不计后果地印钞，没有人在增发比特币。比特币的通胀是可预测的，并且会在某个时间点停止。比特币会长久存在，而法定货币是否能持续下去，还有待观察。

Let me ask you a deeply philosophical, serious question. In your first Tucker interview, you had two interesting chairs in the background. I think they reference a now legendary meme. The choice is Piki Tatrone, ili hui dracione. What is the philosophical wisdom in the dilemma that these two chairs present? Have you had to face the dilemma yourself personally? Not this exact dilemma. I think this is a riddle that people have to face in Russian prisons. And metaphorically, it's describing all the situations where you presented a choice between two suboptimal options. When you're running a big business or when you're running a large country, it is similar.

让我问你一个深刻的哲学问题。在你的第一次Tucker采访中，你的背景中有两把有趣的椅子。我觉得它们与一个传奇的网络迷因有关。这个选择是"Пики Тазерон, или хуй драчин"。这两把椅子所呈现的困境中有什么哲学智慧？你是否曾亲身面临这种困境？虽然不是这个具体的困境，但我认为这是在俄罗斯监狱中人们必须面对的一个谜题。隐喻地说，它描述了当你面临两个次优选择时的所有情况。不管是经营一个大企业，还是管理一个大国家，都是类似的。

You sometimes face this dilemma. What are you going to do? This very horrible thing, or this also very horrible thing. So I think the right answer to this riddle is not to do any of these things. Re-frame the question. Design a solution that turns a disadvantage into an advantage. And then use it to cope with the other side of the problem. Do you know the answer to that riddle? No, somebody on the internet said, you don't have to do it, you have to do it. Basically, try to avoid the situations where such the dilemma is present themselves. Or there is no right answer. This is one of the ways to answer this question. If you got to a tricky situation that probably earlier you made a certain mistake. You fucked up already. It should have been avoided. But the other quite creative answer to this question is that you take the sharp objects from one of the chairs or the spikes. And then they use them to out of the objects from the other chair.

有时候你会面临这样的两难境地：你会选择做这件非常糟糕的事情，还是另一件同样非常糟糕的事情呢？我认为，对这个难题的正确回答是不去做其中任何一件。重新定义问题，设计一个能够将劣势转化为优势的解决方案，然后用它来应对问题的另一面。你知道这个谜题的答案吗？网上有人说，不必去做非做不可的事情。基本上，尽量避免身处这样的困境，因为有时候这些情况本身就没有正确答案。这是回答这个问题的一种方式。如果你遇到了一个棘手的局面，很可能你之前做错了某件事。你已经犯了错误，应该在此之前就避免它的发生。但对这个问题另一个非常有创意的回答是：你可以从一个椅子上取下尖锐的物品或尖刺，用它们来解决另一把椅子上的问题。

And you know what objects I'm talking about. That's a very engineering solution. I'm glad somebody came up with that. I believe this is the right answer. We are often being manipulated by politicians, by corporate leaders, to make a choice from two suboptimal options. And then when we are forced to make this choice and we make this choice, it's almost as if it's something that we have to assume responsibility for. I don't think we should be buying into that. Okay. On this theme of absurdity and ridiculousness, let me. There's an object here that appeared in not many people seem to have noticed this. People should go watch your excellent conversation in the Oslo Freedom Forum behind you. I'm no archaeologist. I believe this is a how should I put it? A walrus penis bone. And it was behind you. You told me that you brought it with you to France and back to Dubai.

你知道我在说什么物品。这是一个非常工程化的解决方案。我很高兴有人想出了这个办法。我相信这是正确的答案。我们经常被政客和企业领袖操控，只能在两个次优的选项中做出选择。而当我们被迫做出这个选择时，几乎就好像我们必须为这个决定承担责任。我认为我们不应该接受这种操控。在探讨荒谬与可笑的主题时，这里有一个物品，似乎没有多少人注意到。大家应该去看你在奥斯陆自由论坛上的精彩对话，这个物品就在你身后。我不是考古学家，我认为这应该是海象的阴茎骨，它就在你身后。你跟我说过，你把它带到了法国，然后又带回了迪拜。

I assume it brings you luck of some sort. Why did you bring it with you everywhere? Is it kind of like an American that has a wish bone? Is it just the large wish bone? The wish bone brings you luck. And I should also point out that just like with telegram with the art, there's tiny little walruses. And thanks to you, I had to also find out that a lot of mammals have a bone inside their penis. The evolutionary advantage, I guess, of having a bone is quite obvious. It actually raises the question of why humans don't have an actual bone inside their penis. A lot of questions there. That's a very interesting subject. The reason I have this is because a tribe that is almost gone extinct in Siberia and Mongolia called the Venkhi passed me this gift from them.

我猜你认为这东西能带来某种好运。为什么你去哪儿都带着它？这是不是有点像美国人随身携带的许愿骨？是不是就像大一点的许愿骨？许愿骨能给你带来好运。我还要指出，就像电报里的艺术作品一样，这里有小小的海象。感谢你，让我了解到许多哺乳动物的阴茎里都有一块骨头。进化上的优势很明显，但这也引出了一个问题：为什么人类的阴茎里没有这样的骨头。这是一个非常有趣的话题。我之所以有这个东西，是因为有一个在西伯利亚和蒙古几乎濒临灭绝的部落，叫做文赫族，他们送给了我这个礼物。

Normally, they would craft something like this only for their most respected leaders. It is supposed to be a token of their appreciation for bravery, courage, leadership. Ironically, it also translates in a very specific way into the Russian language. In Russian, walrus penis means something a bit funny, which is often used to describe nothing. So, for example, if you're being requested by, say, a certain government or a certain business partner to provide something you know that you're willing to provide, you can just politely have this penis bone in the background while you're doing the video call. And hope that they would through osmosis figure out the deep message. It is an indirect rebellion. By the way, in the form of the Soviet Union, there was, in a lot of places throughout history, some of the rebellion had to take this kind of symbolic metaphoric form through poetry, through children's stories.

通常，他们只会为他们最尊敬的领导人制作这样的东西。这被认为是他们对勇敢、胆识和领导力的感谢。然而，讽刺的是，这在俄语中有一个非常特殊的翻译。在俄语中，海象阴茎意味着有点滑稽的东西，通常用来形容无物。所以，例如，如果某个政府或商业伙伴要求你提供一些你愿意提供的东西时，你可以在视频通话时礼貌地把这个阴茎骨放在背景中。希望他们能够通过潜移默化理解这个深刻的信息。这是一种间接的反抗。顺便说一下，在苏联时代，以及历史上的许多地方，有些反抗不得不通过诗歌、儿童故事这样的象征性比喻形式来表达。

It's the beauty of human language and art that we're able to do that. Say FU to whatever forces that try to overpower us. We say FU through poetry, through art, and sometimes through to a rather large walrus penis bone. Carried by what appears to be either a happy sumo wrestler or a cat of some sort. They asked a lot of questions about this walrus penis bone in the airport. Both here in the UAE and in France, they are always very interested in this thing. There seems to be some confusion over how many kids you have. It's often said to be over 100. Can you explain how many kids you have? The truthful answer to this question is, I don't really know how many biological kids I have exactly. Because at a certain point in my life, about 15 years ago, I decided that it was a good idea to be a sperm donor.

人类语言和艺术之美在于我们能够做到这一点。对那些试图压制我们的力量说声"去你的"。我们通过诗歌、艺术，有时甚至通过一个相当大的海象阴茎骨来表达这种情感。据说这个骨头是由看起来像一个快乐的相扑选手或某种猫的东西携带的。在机场，他们对这个海象阴茎骨问了很多问题。无论是在阿联酋还是在法国，他们总是对这个东西非常感兴趣。在谈到有多少孩子的问题上，似乎存在一些混淆。通常有人说孩子超过100个。你能解释一下你有多少个孩子吗？对此问题的真实回答是，我并不确切知道自己有多少个亲生孩子。因为大约15年前，我认为成为精子捐赠者是个好主意。

Initially, a friend of mine asked me to help because they were trying to have a baby with his wife and experienced certain health issues with that. I prevented them from doing it the natural way. We don't want to just rely on some random anonymous genetic material. We want somebody we know and respect to be the biological father of our kid. I said, you've got to be kidding me. It sounds ridiculous. What have you been talking about? But then I realized it's actually a serious issue. They were not the only couple struggling with that. Eventually, I got persuaded into doing more of it. I can't say I'm incredibly proud of that, but I think it was the right thing to do.

最初，我的一个朋友请我帮忙，因为他和妻子在尝试要孩子时遇到了一些健康问题。我阻止了他们采用自然方法，因为我们不想仅依赖一些随机的匿名基因材料。我们希望孩子的生物学父亲是我们认识和尊重的人。我当时说，你是在开玩笑吧，这听起来太荒唐了，你在说什么呢？但后来我意识到这其实是一个严重的问题，不止他们一个夫妻在挣扎。最终，我被说服多参与一些这样的事情。我不能说我对此感到非常自豪，但我认为这是正确的选择。

At the time, when I thought, I probably don't have much time on this planet left, things are getting trickier and trickier. So, if I can help some couples have babies, let's do it. And then more recently, when I was working on my will, I realized that I shouldn't make a distinction between the kids conceived naturally. And the kids who are just my biological kids that I never seen, as long as they can establish their shared DNA with me. Some day, maybe in 30 years from now, they have to be entitled for a share of my state after I'm gone. And that made a lot of noise in the news. For some reason, people get very excited by this kind of news. I got a lot of messages from people claiming they're my kids. I got a lot of requests from people asking me to adopt them. The memes were priceless, but understanding that it's not a thing that most people do, I don't see anything wrong with it.

当时我想，自己在这个世界上的时间可能不多了，事情变得越来越棘手。所以，我想如果我能帮助一些夫妇生育孩子，那就去做吧。最近在处理遗嘱时，我意识到自己不应该区分自然生育的孩子和那些虽然从未见过但与我有共同DNA的生物学孩子。只要他们能证明与我有共同的DNA，将来某天，也许是30年后，他们应该有权分享我身后的财产。这在新闻上引起了很大反响。不知为何，人们对这种新闻特别感兴趣。我收到了很多自称是我孩子的人的消息，也有人请求我收养他们。这些网络段子趣味无穷，不过，尽管大多数人可能不这样做，我觉得这没什么不妥。

Anything I think more people should be donating sperm. So, you should say, like, the 100 plus kids is from that, and you also have naturally conceived kids. And it was a pretty bold decision from a financial perspective to treat them all equally. And also, quite interesting was that you kind of said that they don't receive any money for the first few decades of their life. Can you describe that thinking? I think over abundance, paralyzes motivation and willpower. It's extremely harmful, particularly for young boys to grow up in an environment where they can be proud, not of their own achievements, but of their fathers' achievements, of their fathers' wealth. This removes the incentive to work on developing their own skills, removes the incentive to study to work.

我认为更多人应该捐献精子。你可以这样说：那些超过100个孩子是通过捐献得到的，而且你还有通过自然受孕诞生的孩子。从财务角度来看，你做出了一个相当大胆的决定，就是对他们一视同仁。有趣的是，你似乎说他们在生命的最初几十年里不接受任何金钱资助。你能解释一下这种想法吗？我认为过多的财富会消磨动机和意志力，尤其对年轻男孩来说，这种环境特别有害，因为他们会因为父亲的成就和财富而感到骄傲，而不是因为自己的努力。这削弱了他们提升自己技能的动力，也减少了他们学习和工作的积极性。

So, I thought if they're going to have this money, it should be something that they would only get when they're already adult. It's still risky, but one of the reasons I decided it makes more sense to divide this is a huge wealth that I'm likely to live behind among 100 or more than 100 people is that it won't be too much for every single descendant. But at the same time, some people did the calculation. It's still many, many millions of dollars for each child. So, I'm not sure it helps too much. On the topical abundance offline, we had a lot of fascinating philosophical discussions, one of which was about the mouse paradise experiment, also known as Universe 25.

所以，我想如果他们要得到这些钱，应该是在他们成年以后。这样做仍然有风险，但我决定把这笔巨额财富分给100人或超过100人的原因之一，是希望每个后代分得的金额不会太多。然而，有人经过计算发现，即使这样，每个孩子仍然能得到数百万美元。所以，我不确定这是否真的有帮助。在讨论财富这个话题时，我们在线下进行了许多引人入胜的哲学讨论，其中之一是关于“老鼠天堂”实验，也被称为宇宙25实验。

It's an experiment from the 1960s and early 70s, conducted by ethologist John B. Calhoun. And we can talk about this one for hours also, I'm sure. But it was an experiment with a few hundreds of individual mice compartments. And they provided them with unlimited food, water, nesting, no predator-stable temperatures, and frequent cleaning, basically the definition of a button as far as mice go. And the interesting aspect of this experiment is that at first, the population doubled, it grew very quickly, but then it leveled off, and certain really negative social things started happening. Like, mothers neglecting to kill their young, violent attacks on hypersexual activity became widespread.

这是一个由动物行为学家约翰·B·卡尔霍恩在1960年代和70年代初进行的实验。我们可以花很多时间来讨论这个实验。实验中，有几百个小鼠的独立隔间，研究人员为它们提供了无限的食物、水、巢材，没有天敌、稳定的温度，以及经常的清洁，基本上就是小鼠的天堂。这个实验有趣的地方在于，起初鼠群数量迅速翻倍并快速增长，但后来鼠群数量趋于稳定，同时开始出现一些严重的社会问题，比如母鼠忽视甚至杀害幼崽、暴力攻击和过度的性行为变得普遍。

Some quote unquote beautiful ones, largely inactive well-groomed mice withdrew, refusing to mate their interacts. So, all of these kind of societal qualities that we see as negative for the functioning of society started to emerge because of the abundance. And finally, the collapse. The reproduction rates crashed, social dysfunction spread to the next generation, and eventually just went extinct. It didn't just plummet to a low level, it plummeted steadily to zero, despite the fact that those ongoing resource abundance as the description states, the last mouse died surrounded by untouched food and water.

一些所谓的“漂亮”小鼠，大都不怎么活跃，毛发整齐，它们变得孤僻，不愿交配。这些在我们看来对社会运作不利的现象，开始由于资源的过剩而出现。最终，它们的社会体系崩溃。繁殖率大幅下降，社会功能障碍蔓延到下一代，最终走向灭绝。繁殖率不仅是下降到一个低水平，而是逐渐降为零，尽管资源一直充足。最后一只小鼠死去时，周围仍有未动过的食物和水。

So, I mean, there's deep wisdom to that about abundance. It seems you've mentioned this in different contexts throughout this conversation. It seems like scarcity, it seems that constraints, it seems like nonabundance is essential for human flourishing, which is a counterintuitive notion. It's true for mice, and I think it's probably true for humans too. We have evolved to overcome scarcity. Almost by definition, there has never been such thing as infinite amount of food or entertainment in our lives before, now. We seem as a species to lose our ability to identify purpose in the world where you have everything, and everything loses its meaning.

所以，我的意思是，其中蕴含着关于丰盛的深刻智慧。你在不同的上下文中提到过这个观点。似乎稀缺、限制和非丰盛对于人类的繁荣至关重要，这是一种违反直觉的观念。对于老鼠来说是如此，我认为对于人类也同样适用。我们进化的目的就是为了克服稀缺。几乎可以说，在我们之前的生活中，从未存在过无限的食物或娱乐。作为一个物种，当我们拥有一切时，似乎就失去了发现人生目标的能力，因为一切都变得无意义。

Restrictions are important, I think, though that they should be coming from within, it should be self-restriction rather than restriction, in order to create purpose and meaning in life. In a way, I was lucky in a very counterintuitive way, because I grew up poor. I didn't have money when I was a teenager. I had the same jacket for years, which was bought in a second-hand marketplace. My father wouldn't receive his salary as a university professor for months, because the Russian state was almost bankrupt back then. My mom had to juggle two jobs, to take care of us. It was not easy, but it also created purpose and created meaning. It created priorities. It allowed us to focus on things that mattered, allowed us to develop our character and intellectual abilities. Now, if we had everything, why do you do anything?

限制是重要的。我认为，限制应该来自内在，应该是自我限制，而不是外在的限制，以便在生活中创造目标和意义。从某种角度来看，我是幸运的，虽然这听起来有些反常，因为我在贫困中长大。青少年时期，我没有钱，多年来一直穿着在二手市场买来的同一件夹克。由于当时俄罗斯国家几乎破产，我父亲作为大学教授几个月都领不到工资。我妈妈不得不兼顾两份工作来照顾我们。这并不容易，但也因此创造了目标和意义，帮助我们确立了优先事项，让我们能够专注于重要的事情，并发展我们的品格和智力能力。现在如果我们拥有一切，就没有理由去做任何事情。

This mice suffered societal collapse that was irreversible, and this is not an accident. This kind of experiment has been repeated countless times. At a certain point, social dysfunction and the erosion of social roles becomes contagious. The society gradually degrades into a chaotic collection of individuals unable to take care of the next generation or even to produce the next generation. And it goes extinct. It's fascinating because we're creating technologies, and this is what AI is proposing to our future generations as a problem to solve, which is AI may very well create abundance. And so we will be like these mice, potentially. Whether it's AI or other kinds of technologies that increase and give more and more to all of us. And it is a thing that is good, decreasing amount of suffering in the world, increase the quality of life.

这些小鼠经历了不可逆转的社会崩溃，这并不是偶然的。这种实验已经被重复了无数次。在某个时刻，社会功能失调和社会角色的侵蚀开始具有传染性。整个社会逐渐退化成一个混乱的个体集合，无法照顾下一代，甚至无法繁衍下一代，最终走向灭绝。这很有趣，因为我们正在创造技术，而这正是人工智能为我们未来的世代提出的一个需要解决的问题，即人工智能有可能创造丰富。这样一来，我们可能会像这些小鼠一样。不论是人工智能还是其他类型的技术，都在不断为我们提供更多的资源。这是一件好事，因为它减少了世界上的苦难，提高了生活质量。

But as we reach towards that abundance, the fabric that connects us rooted in our biology that's developed by evolution, might create a real challenge for us. We should find the right balance between chaos and order, between self-restriction and freedom for creativity. Your father recently celebrated his ADS birthday. You had a conversation with him. He gave you some life advice. I think he mentioned to me one of the things he said was not to just speak of your principles, but to live them to lead by example. I think this is something you already do well. Maybe can you speak to what you've learned about life from your father? Maybe some of the lessons he told you on in the conversation you've had with him on his birthday.

但当我们迈向那种富足时，连接我们的、生物演化中形成的纽带可能会给我们带来真正的挑战。我们应该在混乱与秩序之间、自我约束与创造自由之间找到适当的平衡。你的父亲最近刚过了他的“ADS”生日，你和他进行了交谈。他给了你一些人生建议，我记得他提到其中一点是不要只是谈论你的原则，而是要身体力行，以身作则。我觉得你已经在这方面做得很好了。你能不能谈谈从父亲那里学到的人生经验？或许分享一些他在生日时与你谈话中提到的教训。

I'm incredibly lucky to have my father, his person who wrote countless books on ancient Rome and ancient Roman literature, dozens of scientific papers. And I always remember he was working. He would be busy typing his books and articles and an old-school typewriter back in the late 80s, early 90s. He was relentless. The example he said to myself and my brother was priceless. Some people make this mistake of thinking that you're going to instill the right principles in the future generation or in your kids by saying things to them. But kids are smart. They discount words. They look at the actions. So observing our father was a big lesson by itself. It wasn't necessary for him to say anything to us.

我非常幸运地拥有我的父亲，他是一个撰写了无数关于古罗马和古罗马文学的书籍，以及发表了数十篇科学论文的人。我始终记得他总是在工作，总是忙着用一台老式打字机敲打他的书籍和文章，那是在20世纪80年代末到90年代初。他非常执着。他给我和哥哥树立了无价的榜样。有人犯了这样的错误，以为通过对孩子说教就能灌输正确的理念，但孩子们很聪明，他们不会轻信空话，而是看行动。因此，观察我们的父亲本身就是一个重要的教训，他根本不用对我们说什么。

And then at the same time he was incredibly patient, emotionally resilient. My mom, a great woman, incredibly smart, highly educated. But she would sometimes try to test the patience of my father and try to do it in our biology. There's an evolutionary explanation for that. The women sometimes tend to do that and he demonstrated incredible patience all the time. He told me recently you shouldn't give the wrong example to the people around you and in particular to your kids because you can do the right thing nine times out of ten. But you make a mistake once and they will instantly copy it. If you're telling your kids not to use a smartphone but you're using a smartphone all the time yourself and coming up with all kinds of sophisticated brilliant explanations why they shouldn't be using a smartphone. It won't land. It's bound to fail.

同时，他非常有耐心，并且情感上极为坚韧。而我的妈妈是一位伟大的女性，聪明且受过高等教育。但有时候，她会试图考验我父亲的耐心，这似乎在我们的生物天性中有一定的进化解释。女性有时倾向于这样做，而我父亲一直表现出极大的耐心。他最近告诉我，不要给周围的人，特别是孩子们树立错误的榜样，因为即便你有十次中九次都做对了事情，但只要犯一次错误，他们就会立刻效仿。比如，如果你告诉孩子不要用智能手机，但自己却一直在使用，还找各种理由来解释他们不该用，那么这番劝说就没什么效果，注定要失败。

So you lead by example and there are other numerous lessons staying positive looking at the bright side. Never despair. Be honest. And you know he told me last time I spoke to him that AI can have consciousness, can be creative, but it cannot have conscience in a way, it cannot be moral. It cannot have deeply rooted principles, can it have integrity in the meaning that we understand it as human beings. I love the fact that you're talking to your eight-year-old father and you're talking about AGI and the difference between human, the human spirit, human nature and what AGI AI is able to achieve in conscience is the thing that humans have, the ability to know the right from wrong. This is the lesson that he gave me. One of my goals in life is never to support him.

所以，你以身作则，并且还有很多其他的课题，比如保持积极、看到事情好的一面。永远不要绝望。要诚实。你知道，上次我和他聊的时候，他告诉我，人工智能可以有意识，可以有创造力，但在某种程度上，它无法拥有良知，无法具备道德标准。它不能拥有我们作为人类所理解的那种根深蒂固的原则，以及完整性。我很喜欢你和你八十岁的父亲谈论通用人工智能（AGI）以及人类精神、人的本性和AGI所能达到的区别，而良知正是人类拥有的，能分辨对错的能力。这是他教给我的一课。我的人生目标之一就是永远不去支持他。

Another thing we've talked about, which I think is a fascinating topic, is the power of the mind, power of thought. Do you believe you can affect your life and reality by thinking about it, by manifesting it into being? What do you think? There are many explanations why it works. One thing most people agree on is that setting goals and staying positive and confident, God's allow you to achieve the things you want to achieve. It's very hard to believe, though, that you can just manifest things into being without applying effort in the direction that seems to be logical. Maybe some people exist that can just sit on the bank of a river and materialize things by the power of their thought, but I'm not sure in one of these people.

我们之前讨论过的另一个话题，我认为非常有趣，那就是心灵的力量，思维的力量。你相信通过思考和将想法变成现实能够影响你的生活和现实吗？你怎么看？关于这个问题有很多解释。大多数人都同意目标设定和保持积极、自信的态度有助于实现我们的愿望。不过，仅靠思维就能使事物变成现实，而不需要付出任何努力，好像很难让人相信。也许确实存在一些人，只需坐在河岸边，靠思维的力量就能实现物质化，但我不确定我是否是这样的人。

I always found it more easy to believe that if you couple this optimism and faith with logical action, then it is bound to be successful. Prolonged effort, hard work, coupled with positive focus thinking about the thing. Over many, many, many days, it is possible to imagine our world as a high-dimensional universe where humans have the ability to navigate through it with the power of belief, which is coupled with positive emotion and logical thinking. But we are getting into an esoteric realm. We don't have any proof of that, but we also know that we probably at this point haven't discovered even 1% of the things that we have done.

我总是发现，如果你将乐观和信念与合乎逻辑的行动结合起来，就更容易相信成功是必然的。长期努力、辛勤工作，再加上积极的思维专注于某件事情。经过很多很多天后，我们可以想象我们的世界是一个高维宇宙，人类可以凭借信念的力量在其中导航，这信念还结合了积极的情感和合乎逻辑的思考。但是，这进入了一个玄奥的领域。对此我们没有证据，但我们也知道可能到目前为止，我们连自己所做事情的1%都还没有发现。

I agree with you fully. I like what you said in the way you were thinking about it. You've told me before that maybe there's a way that with effort and with a focused mind, you can shape, you can morph to sort of landscape or probabilities around you. It's a nice way to visualize it, that somehow our effort and our focus changes the things that are likely and less likely. By focusing on it, we make those a more and more likely. At least as an estimate, as a kind of field that we throw our thoughts and our actions change that field. And then there's 8 billion of us doing so. And together there's this collective intelligence that creates the world we see around us, like the mice.

我完全同意你的观点。我喜欢你思考问题的方式。你之前告诉我，也许通过努力和专注，我们可以在某种程度上改变周围的环境或可能性。这是一种很好的视觉化方法，即我们的努力和专注能改变事物发生的可能性。通过专注，我们让这些事情变得越来越可能。至少可以认为这是一个估计，是一个我们投入思想和行动的“场”，而这个场会被我们的思想和行动所改变。而地球上有80亿人都在这样做，集体的智慧创造了我们周围的世界，就像那些老鼠一样。

And like you said, us as a humanity together are perfect. I like that you said that. I admire your belief in the fact that we get to experience this together, because it's not obvious. Maybe each of us experiences his own or her own universe. And maybe every second of the universe, please, into a billion of different universes. And everything that can happen happens. And there's a universe where, say, I died in 2013. Maybe every time I die, I actually get to shift to a parallel universe when I don't die. And then it keeps going. And at certain points which use this quantum immortality when we're 1000 years old.

就像你说的，我们人类整体是完美的。我很喜欢你这样说。我欣赏你相信我们能一起经历这一切，因为这并不是显而易见的。也许我们每个人都在体验自己独特的宇宙。可能每一秒钟，宇宙都会分裂成数十亿个不同的宇宙，而一切可能发生的事情都会发生。可能有一个宇宙中，我在2013年去世了。也许每次我死去时，我实际上都会转移到一个我没有死去的平行宇宙，然后这样无限循环。在某个时刻，我们可能会利用这种量子不朽，当我们活到1000岁的时候。

But a lot of people from other versions of reality think we're long gone. Yeah, this is something you explain to me, the idea of quantum immortality, which is a thought experiment, which I find deeply fascinating. People should look into it, which is very crisp, clean consequence of the many worlds, interpretation of quantum mechanics, that we as conscious beings can't experience our death. You can only, as we branch into these many worlds, only the living consciousnesses get to experience it. Some sense, yeah, there's many universes, if we're to seriously take the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, there's many universes where you died many times, especially you.

但是，来自其他现实版本的很多人认为我们已经消失了。是的，这就是你向我解释的“量子永生”概念，这是一个让我深感着迷的思想实验。大家应该去了解一下，这是量子力学多世界诠释的一个非常明确和直接的结果，即作为有意识的存在，我们无法体验到自己的死亡。在我们分裂进入这些多重世界时，只有活着的意识才能体验到这一点。某种意义上，如果我们严肃对待量子力学的多世界诠释，那么在许多宇宙中，你已经死过很多次，尤其是你。

And I'm glad we're in the universe where we get to share the table with this impressive bone, a little humor and a lot of serious topics covered today. Once again, I can't say enough, a giant thank you for me and a giant thank you from hundreds of millions of people that follow your work for you fighting for the freedom of all of us to speak and creating a platform where we can do so. And thank you so much for talking to Dave, brother. It's been an honor getting to know you and to be able to call you a friend.

很高兴我们生活在这个宇宙中，可以与你这样令人敬佩的人共享一个桌子。今天的话题既有幽默也有很多严肃的讨论。再次衷心感谢你，我个人和关注你工作的数亿人都感谢你为我们所有人的言论自由而奋斗，并创建了我们可以自由表达的平台。非常感谢你与戴夫对话，兄弟。认识你并能称你为朋友，是我的荣幸。

Thank you for saying that. I'm also incredibly grateful to you and to the fact that it happened to be in this version of reality when I haven't died, at least yet, and hopefully we'll get to spend more fun moments in the years to come together. Thank you, Ra. Thank you for listening to this conversation with Pablo Duroff. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me try to articulate some things I've been thinking about.

谢谢你这么说。我也非常感激你，并为我们能够在这个现实中相遇而感到庆幸，至少到目前为止我还活着，希望未来的岁月中我们能继续共度更多快乐时光。谢谢你，Ra。感谢你收听与Pablo Duroff的对话。若想支持这个播客，请查看介绍中的赞助商。现在，让我来试着表达一些我一直在思考的事情。

If you'd like to submit questions or topics like this for me to talk about in the future, go to lexfreedman.com slash AMA. I'd like to use this opportunity to talk about Franz Kafka, one of my favorite writers. The reason he has been on my mind is that his work, the trial, and the case of Pablo Duroff in France has, let's say, eerie parallels, both metaphorically and literally. Of course, the trial is a work of fiction, but I think it is often useful to go to this real world of literature, even of the over-the-top dystopian variety, like 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, the trial, the castle, and the amorphous, even the plague by Albert Camus, all to but understand our real world. And the destructive paths we have the potential to go down together, which also, hopefully, helps us understand how to avoid doing so.

如果你希望提交类似的问题或话题让我在未来讨论，请访问 lexfreedman.com/AMA。我想借此机会谈论一下我的最爱作家之一，弗朗茨·卡夫卡。我最近想到他，是因为他的作品《审判》与Pablo Duroff在法国的案件有些令人毛骨悚然的相似之处，无论是隐喻上还是字面上。当然，《审判》是一部虚构作品，但我认为进入这个文学的真实世界是有益的，即便是那些夸张的反乌托邦类型，如《1984》、《动物农场》、《美丽新世界》、《审判》、《城堡》和阿尔贝·加缪的《鼠疫》，都有助于我们理解真实世界。理解这些潜在的毁灭之路有助于我们避免误入歧途。

So let me zoom out and speak about Franz Kafka. Who was he? He was an insurance clerk who wrote at night. He died young and almost completely unknown, and he asked for his manuscripts to be burned. Luckily for us, his friend Max Broad refused to do so. Giving us the work of what I consider to be one of 20th century's greatest writers. In his work, Kafka wrote about the cold machine-like reduction of humus-to-case files through the labyrinth of institutional power. He wrote about an individual's feeling of guilt even when a crime has not been committed.

让我放大一点，来谈谈弗兰茨·卡夫卡。他是谁呢？他是一位白天当保险职员，晚上写作的作家。他英年早逝，几乎无名，还要求把他的手稿烧掉。幸好他的朋友马克斯·布罗德拒绝了这个请求，让我们得以保留他的重要作品。我认为卡夫卡是20世纪最伟大的作家之一。在他的作品中，他描绘了通过制度权力迷宫将人性冷酷地简化为案件档案的过程。他还写到了即便没有犯罪，个体也会感到内疚的体验。

Or more generally, he wrote about the feeling of anxiety that is part of the human condition in our modern chaotic world. His writing style was to use short, declared asceticisms to describe the surreal and the absurd, and in so doing, effectively, I think, convey the feeling of an experience versus simply describing the experience. For example, famously, his work The Metamorphoses opens with the following lines. As Gregor Samza awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying in his hard, armor-plated back, and when he lifted his head a little, he could see his domalag brown belly divided into stiff, arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep him position, and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin, compared to the rest of his bulk, waived helplessly before his eyes.

他更广泛地写到了在我们现代混乱世界中，作为人类状态一部分的焦虑感。他的写作风格是使用简短、明确的节制语来描述超现实和荒诞，通过这种方式，我认为，他有效地传达了体验的感觉，而不仅仅是简单地描述体验。比如，他著名的作品《变形记》开篇就写道：格里高尔·萨姆萨在一个早晨从不安的梦中醒来，发现自己在床上变成了一只巨大的昆虫。他仰卧着，硬邦邦的、铠甲般的背部朝下，当他稍微抬起头时，可以看到他棕色、浑圆的肚子，肚子硬硬的分成一个个拱形的节段，被褥几乎压不住这些节段，随时可能滑落。他的腿又多又细，与庞大的躯体不成比例，虚弱无力地在眼前晃动。

Kafka, I think, effectively uses this image of being transformed into a giant bug stuck on his back to convey a feeling of helplessness and uselessness to his family, to his job, to society. The feeling of being a burden to everyone, dehumanized, alienated, and abandoned. The feeling of being only temporarily valued as long as he served some function for his job or for his family and quickly discarded otherwise. I will probably talk about this work in more depth at another time because it is so haunting, and I think it is such a profound description of the burden of existence in modern society for many people.

我认为，卡夫卡借用变成一只仰面朝天的大虫子的形象，有效地传达出一种无助和无用的感觉——对家庭、工作和社会都如此。这种感觉就像是成为了所有人的负担，被去人性化、被疏离、被抛弃。只要对工作或家庭有用，他就暂时被重视，否则就立即被丢弃。因为这部作品实在令人难以忘怀，我可能会在另一个时候更深入地讨论它。我觉得它深刻地描述了现代社会中许多人存在的重负。

But here, let me talk about another of his work, the trial. In this novel, the main character Joseph Kay is a successful bank officer, and he is arrested on his birthday for an unspecified crime by a kind of amorphous court whose authorities everywhere and nowhere. He navigates a labyrinth-like legal system where everyone knows about his case, but no one can really explain it. The so-called trial never actually occurs in any conventional sense. Instead, Joseph Kay's entire life becomes the proceedings leading up to the trial. In a sense, the trial is the state of being accused itself, a permanent condition rather than a singular event.

在这里，我想谈谈他另一部作品《审判》。在这部小说中，主人公约瑟夫·K是一位成功的银行职员。他在生日那天被一种无形的法院逮捕，罪名未明，而权威似乎无处不在，却又无迹可寻。他在一个迷宫般的法律系统中穿行，所有人都知道他的案子，但却没有人能真正解释清楚。所谓的审判从未以任何传统意义上的方式进行。反而，约瑟夫·K的整个生活变成了为审判做准备的过程。从某种意义上说，审判就是被指控这一状态本身，它是一个永久的状况，而不仅仅是一个单一的事件。

Kafka's genius in this work was to show that modern institutions don't need to hold trials. They just need to hold you in the permanent looming possibility of one. Public attention to this case, both positive and negative, gives Joseph Kay a feeling of constantly being judged by people around him. This wears at his mind, and his psychological well-being begins to deteriorate. In a sense, the trial doesn't need to convict him. The internal psychological turmoil and the external social scrutiny perform the conviction and the eventual execution.

卡夫卡在这部作品中的卓越之处在于，他揭示了现代机构不需要真正进行审判。他们只需要让你处于一种随时可能被审判的状态即可。公众对这个案件的关注，无论是正面的还是负面的，都让约瑟夫·K感到自己不断地被周围的人评判。这让他感到精神疲惫，心理健康开始恶化。从某种意义上来说，审判并不需要定他的罪。内心的心理动荡和外部的社会关注已经完成了对他的定罪并最终导致他的“处决”。

When exactly one year after his arrest, Joseph Kay is visited by two men who walk him courteously through the city to an abandoned quarry and stab him in the heart without Joseph Kay resisting. To me, the trial shows that tyranny's final victory isn't when it kills you, but when you hold still for the knife, not because you're forced, but because you've been exhausted into submission. Once again, it is a haunting story of the soluseness of bureaucracy in its suffocation of the human spirit. I highly recommend this short book and I'll probably talk about it even more in the future.

在他被捕整整一年后，约瑟夫·凯被两名男子拜访，他们礼貌地带他穿过城市，来到一个废弃的采石场，然后在没有约瑟夫·凯抵抗的情况下刺入他的心脏。对我来说，《审判》展示了暴政的最终胜利并不是在杀死你时，而是在你甘愿接受刀子的时候。这种甘愿并非因为被迫，而是因被压榨至屈服再次。这是一个令人不安的故事，讲述了官僚体制如何窒息人的精神。我非常推荐这本短篇小说，并且未来可能会更多地谈论它。

I don't think it's especially useful for me to speak to any parallels between the trial and Paula Duraugh's case, because after all, the trial is a work of fiction. But on a positive note, let me report that as far as I saw, Paula has maintained optimism and a general positive outlook throughout this whole process. What I always fear in such cases is that a bureaucratic system can wear people down, exhaust them into surrender. I saw none of that with Paula. I don't think he knows how to give up or give in, no matter how much pressure he's under. Again, this is truly inspiring to me.

我认为将这次审判与宝拉·杜劳的案件进行比较没有太大意义，因为这次审判毕竟是一部虚构作品。不过，值得欣慰的是，我注意到宝拉在整个过程中始终保持乐观和积极的态度。我一向担心，在这样的情况下，繁杂的官僚体系会让人感到疲惫不堪，最终不得不放弃。然而，我在宝拉身上完全没有看到这种情况。他似乎不知道什么是放弃，无论遭遇多大的压力。这一点对我来说真是鼓舞人心。

Also, now that we're talking about it, let me mention some other of Kafka's work that was moving to me. The castle has similar description as the trial does of the absurd inaccessibility of those in authority of the Nightmares bureaucracy. The character in the castle is also named Kay. Both biocracies operate through exhaustion and list deferrals, procedures, waiting rooms. Again, highly relevant to modern times.

在我们讨论这个话题的时候，我想提一下卡夫卡的其他一些让我感动的作品。《城堡》和《审判》一样，描述了权威机构的荒谬难以接近，都体现了梦魇般的官僚主义。《城堡》中的主人公也叫K。两个作品中的官僚系统都靠消耗精力、拖延流程、各种程序和等待室来运作。这些主题在现代仍然很有意义。

I can also highly recommend Kafka's in the penal colony and hunger artist. Both are too interesting and weird to explain in depth here. But let me say the hunger artist is a story that I think is relevant to our modern day attention economy, where so many people want to be famous. It tells the story of, let's say, a professional faster who performs starvation in a cage as entertainment. And he slowly loses his audience to new spectacles, so much so that eventually when he starves himself to death, nobody cares.

我强烈推荐卡夫卡的《在流放地》和《饥饿艺术家》。这两部作品都非常有趣且奇异，很难在这里详细解释。不过，我可以说《饥饿艺术家》讲述了一个与我们现代注意力经济相关的故事，在当今时代，许多人渴望成名。它讲述了一个职业绝食者的故事，他在笼子里通过绝食来进行表演，但是他的观众慢慢被新的表演吸引，最终，当他绝食而死时，竟然无人关心。

Kafka's work is heavy. It serves as a warning for the nightmare that civilization can become. And yet I think it is also source of optimism, because when we can recognize elements of our own world and Kafka's stories, when we can see elements of our institutions in the trial or in the castle, when we can see ourselves in Gregor Samza, we're not just diagnosing the disease, we're proving that we're still human, and wise enough to see it and name it.

卡夫卡的作品很沉重。它警示着文明可能演变成的噩梦。然而，我认为它也是一种乐观的源泉。因为当我们能够在卡夫卡的故事中认出自己世界的元素时，当我们在《审判》或《城堡》中看到我们制度的影子时，当我们在格雷戈尔·萨姆萨身上看到自己的影子时，我们不仅是在诊断问题，更是在证明我们依然是人类，并且足够智慧去看见它并说出它。

Kafka gave us the goal to resist against such systems that tried to dehumanize us, and to ensure that individual freedom and the human spirit keep flourishing. I think it will. I have faith in those humans. I love you all.

卡夫卡给了我们一个目标，即对抗那些试图剥夺我们人性、让我们变得麻木的系统，并确保个人自由和人类精神继续蓬勃发展。我相信这会实现。我对人类充满信心。我爱你们所有人。

Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power &amp; Human Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #482

摘要

中英文字稿

Pavel Durov: Telegram, Freedom, Censorship, Money, Power & Human Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #482