Telegram vs WhatsApp: Why everyone copies from Telegram | Pavel Durov and Lex Fridman

You're extremely selective and slow in hiring, so people really have to earn their spot. I got a chance to sit in one of the team meetings where people discuss different features and ideas, some at the cutting edge. You see how to have a fast rate of idea generation: generate the idea, implement it, create a prototype, and eventually it becomes an actual feature. That's why compared to WhatsApp and Signal, you've led the way on many features we take for granted, like the auto-delete timer that was 7 years ahead of any other messenger, editing, and reply eyes. These are obvious things, and I've even forgotten that some were never part of other apps. I think the auto-delete timer is a brilliant idea. We implemented it in 2013 in secret chats. It's funny that when other apps copied it, like WhatsApp seven years after and Signal, they initially copied the exact timestamps, for example, if we had 1, 3, and 5 seconds, they would also have 1, 3, and 5 seconds.

Yeah, but we should say that it's done extremely well. The vertical line and the highlighting are tiny strokes of genius. Highlighting the text in a way that makes it clear which part was written before and which is the reply. The distinction between formatting, typography as an art form, and interacting graphic elements in Telegram that all work together. The background gradient of Telegram shifts and adjusts nicely to chat bubbles, with graphic elements on top that interplay together. All of that has to work without sacrificing clarity, making everything intuitive. That's very difficult to create—it's art. And on top of that, super fast.

Yeah. They notice it subconsciously or something like that. There is a pleasant feeling when you're reading a chat, and that's where the design contributes. I think the gradient really does. I love that about Telegram—the feeling of it.