This week, Andrey Ternovskiy, the eighteen year old Russian founder of the world’s weirdest social networking website, Chatroulette, gets the New Yorker treatment.
In Julia Ioffe’s story, we learn that Ternovskiy struggled in school–his offenses included “chronic truancy and correcting the English of his English teacher” (he learned English by chatting with friends online).
A few new details emerge about Ternovskiy company: Chatroulette attracted 48 million visitors over a 3 month period; it employs five programmers in Belarus; and it makes about $1,500 a day.
That may seem modest, but, according to the article, it was enough to get the attention of Fred Wilson, the New York VC, who helped Ternovskiy get a tourist visa to come to the United States.
Ternovskiy is now in Palo Alto and says he plans never to return to Moscow.
Photo by Nick Bilton.