Pavel Durov shared tongue-in-cheek advice for founders to “be the board” in a Friday post in which the Telegram founder compared the Nvidia board’s acceptance of Jensen Huang’s resignation with his own board-led ousting at VKontakte in 2014.Durov has had an eventful week attempting to find the humor in Jensen Huang’s situation at Nvidia, joking in a November 11 X post why French, Russian and Iranian spy agencies have never sent him a honeypot. Unfair that CEOs who aren’t into Asian girls get fewer dating options from spy agencies. Where are the French/Russian/Iranian honeypots? Not one spy girl sent my way. Are they even trying?France is excused — their decision-makers aren’t into girls. Everyone else: try harder!— Pavel Durov (@durov) November 11, 2026His latest post about the episode fingers company boards as the problem in a loose comparison of Durov’s 2014 departure from VKontakte and Huang’s 2026 Nvidia exit.The board gets you either wayPosting to the over 10 million subscribers on his Telegram channel, Durov wrote on Friday: “In 2014, my board kicked me out for saying no to spies. In 2026, Jensen’s board kicked him out for saying yes to one. So the board gets you either way.” Pavel Durov’s November 13 post joking about Jensen Huang’s board “rookie mistake.” Source: Pavel Durov via Telegram.Durov joked that Huang made the “rookie mistake” of having a board in the first place. The Russian-born founder ended the post with advice for founders to “be the board.” By that logic, there will be no one to force them out or even accept their resignation. What did Durov’s board do to him in 2014? According to The Moscow Times, Durov sold his 12% stake in the VKontakte social network to MegaFon chief executive Ivan Tavrin in January 2014. The sale came after he reportedly said no to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) when it demanded the personal data of members of a group tied to Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests.The episode ended with Durov leaving Russia, and the company coming under the control of Mail.ru and United Capital Partners, owners with links to the Kremlin. In his case, Durov said “no to spies” when Russia’s security service asked him to hand over protest data. More than a decade later, it became the hook for his joke.Notably, in Jensen Huang’s case, he resigned from his position as president, chief executive and director, according to Nvidia’s Form 8-K. The board only accepted his resignation. Colette Kress, who had served as the company’s CFO since 2013, was promoted to interim CEO. Harvey Jones will now fill the board chair role, moved up from the director seat he has held since 1993. The resignation ended 33 years of Huang leadership at the company he co-founded in 1993 and built into the multi-trillion-dollar firm at the head of the AI buildout, Cryptopolitan reported. The stock dropped 10% before the opening bell after news of his exit broke.The espionage link is still unprovenThe second half of Durov’s joke, “saying yes to one” spy, has not been completely confirmed as fact. Huang has acknowledged and apologized for his extramarital relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center firm. US intelligence agencies suspect the woman Huang of ties to China’s Ministry of State Security, although Beijing continues to deny those claims.Jensen Huang has insisted that he did not share any company secrets or compromise US national security. Durov has his troubled history with French authorities. He was arrested in France in 2024 over Telegram’s content moderation and has clashed repeatedly with Russian authorities even after leaving the country. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.