Switzerland is fairly expensive though [0]. Might not be a problem for Pavel Durov, but maybe for his engineers?
Anyways I would have expected more than a simple gmail address from someone developing a crypto messenger. A GPG Public Key too much to ask?
Otherwise Switzerland is indeed quite a nice play for businesses. Founding a company takes about half an hour. So that should count as fairly unbureaucratic. Plus Google etc. have their Europe headquarter here.
You're talking about a "crypto messenger" that doesn't have end-to-end encryption enabled by default (and is therefore insecure by default, just like Whatsapp and other apps like that), so maybe you're expecting too much of him.
Germany is a good second choice after Switzerland, I think. Iceland would still be my #1 choice for Wikileaks-like companies, but I don't think Telegram is in that situation, and they might prefer a warmer weather anyway.
As a German expat who moved to the UK to start a business, I second this. Incorporating (a GmbH) in Germany would've been a major nightmare compared to the UK. Not that I'd recommend the UK as a good location at this point.
Anyways I would have expected more than a simple gmail address from someone developing a crypto messenger. A GPG Public Key too much to ask?
Otherwise Switzerland is indeed quite a nice play for businesses. Founding a company takes about half an hour. So that should count as fairly unbureaucratic. Plus Google etc. have their Europe headquarter here.
[0] Source: I live there.