CZ: From McDonald’s Worker to Binance Founder — Rise, Fall, and Redemption

Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, didn’t start his journey as a crypto billionaire. His path to building the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was shaped by immigration, hard work, and a series of bold decisions.

A Humble Start in Canada

CZ’s 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 McDonald’s 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 “Genius,” 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 practical—far from the typical “crypto visionary” 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 lifetime—comparable 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.

“In my lifetime, I saw two fundamental technologies: the internet and Bitcoin.
I missed the first one. I didn’t want to miss the second.”

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 Binance’s 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 wasn’t 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 doesn’t create more happiness.

Life Advice from CZ

His philosophy is simple:

  • You don’t need to be the smartest person.

  • Principles, emotional intelligence, and consistency matter more.

  • Improve yourself slightly every day.

  • Stay at “110–130% effort” over long periods.

“If you keep improving a little every day for 30 years—and get a bit lucky—you’ll likely become very successful.”

The Bigger Lesson

CZ’s story isn’t about a single genius idea or overnight success. It’s 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.

#Binance #CZ $BNB @CZ