Really? The fact that they addressed security concerns with "they're bullshit, here, we'll prove it - break out system!" and then had to pay out nearly immediately convinced you they're awesome?
Building an encrypted IM service with bad crypto is like investing in blacksmiths in the early 1900s.
... which is fixed by a better client. That requires skills, but different ones from designing a new crypto protocol.
Given the PR efforts of the telegram people, they might actually be better XMPP+OTR+TextSecure+... client implementers than crypto designers (and maybe even better client implementers than most of the people who build clients right now since the situation _is_ bad).
huh?
You can't measure how secure something is by looking at how much money has been invested in it.