CZ: From McDonaldās Worker to Binance Founder ā Rise, Fall, and Redemption
Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, didnāt start his journey as a crypto billionaire. His path to building the worldās largest cryptocurrency exchange was shaped by immigration, hard work, and a series of bold decisions.
A Humble Start in Canada
CZās early life was far from glamorous.
After his family emigrated from China to Canada in the late 1980s, they lived on a tight budget.
His father was a graduate student earning about $1,000 per month.
His mother worked at a garment factory for minimum wage.
At 14 or 15 years old, CZ took a job at McDonaldās to support himself. That experience shaped his work ethic and independence early in life.
Despite financial struggles, he described his teenage years in Canada as some of the happiest in his life.
Not a āGenius,ā Just Consistent
CZ never considered himself a prodigy.
He studied computer science, worked part-time throughout university, and made it a goal to graduate without debt. After school, he built trading systems in Tokyo and later joined Bloomberg in New York, where he managed teams developing futures trading platforms.
His career path was steady and practicalāfar from the typical ācrypto visionaryā narrative.
The Bitcoin Moment That Changed Everything
In 2013, at the age of 36, CZ first encountered Bitcoin through friends in the tech and venture capital world.
After months of studying the whitepaper and the community, he became convinced that Bitcoin represented one of the most important technological shifts of his lifetimeācomparable to the internet.
He made a radical decision:
Sold his apartment in Shanghai for nearly $1 million
Converted the proceeds into Bitcoin
Quit his job to work full-time in crypto
His average entry price was around $600 per BTC.
At the time, the move looked extremely risky. But for CZ, it was about conviction and timing.
āIn my lifetime, I saw two fundamental technologies: the internet and Bitcoin.
I missed the first one. I didnāt want to miss the second.ā
Early Crypto Jobs and Lessons Learned
Before founding Binance, CZ worked across several crypto companies:
Blockchain.info (now Blockchain.com) as engineering lead
OKCoin as CTO
Various exchange and infrastructure projects
These experiences taught him key lessons:
Remote teams can scale globally
Guerilla marketing can outperform big budgets
Culture matters more than compensation
Many of these insights later shaped Binanceās rapid growth.
The Birth of Binance
In 2017, after building exchange software for clients, CZ and his team decided to launch their own platform.
The process wasnāt glamorous:
They reused open-source code for the first demo
Copied market data from existing exchanges for the prototype
Focused on speed, reliability, and user experience
Within months, Binance became one of the fastest-growing exchanges in crypto history.
His Definition of Success
CZ believes success is not just about money. He highlights:
Health
Family
Freedom of time
Strong values and principles
Positive impact on the world
According to him, after a certain point, more money doesnāt create more happiness.
Life Advice from CZ
His philosophy is simple:
You donāt need to be the smartest person.
Principles, emotional intelligence, and consistency matter more.
Improve yourself slightly every day.
Stay at ā110ā130% effortā over long periods.
āIf you keep improving a little every day for 30 yearsāand get a bit luckyāyouāll likely become very successful.ā
The Bigger Lesson
CZās story isnāt about a single genius idea or overnight success. Itās about:
Decades of preparation
Taking calculated risks
Staying committed during downturns
Constant adaptation
From flipping burgers as a teenager to building a global crypto empire, his journey shows one simple truth:
Conviction plus consistency beats raw talent.
