Changpeng Zhao

Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, is a Chinese-born Canadian businessman, investor, and software engineer. Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume as of July 2022. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao was ranked the 136th-richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $13.1 billion as of December 2022. Early life and education Zhao was born in Qing Kou in China's Jiangsu province. In the late 1980s, when he was 12 years old, he immigrated with his family to Canada, settling down in Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents were both schoolteachers in China. His father worked as a university instructor before he was branded a "pro-bourgeois intellect" and exiled to rural areas shortly after Zhao's birth. During his teenage years in Canada, Zhao helped to support his family by holding down a number of service jobs, including working as a fast-food clerk at a McDonald's restaurant and a gas station. Zhao attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he majored in computer science.