Biography: Changpeng Zhao, better known as “CZ,” is the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. He was born in the Chinese province of Jiangsu in 1977 but moved to Canada at 12 years old. In his teens, Zhao worked at McDonald’s and a service station to support his family. He later went on to study computer science at Montreal’s McGill University before going on to develop trading software for the likes of the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg Terminal. He got his start in the crypto industry in 2013 on the development team for the Bitcoin blockchain explorer Blockchain.com and was also the chief technology officer of the cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin. Binance was founded in 2017 and has since become a massive player in the crypto space, not only processing the lion’s share of exchange volume but also launching blockchains, creating a nonfungible token marketplace and offering crypto custody solutions, among other ventures.