'I Lost a Lot of Trust': CZ on the U.S., Freedom of Money, and Redemption

**Changpeng Zhao** (0:00)
I lost a lot of trust. I basically wanted to stay away from the US as far as possible. A year and a half ago, if you asked me, like, no, I would not come here to do an interview.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (0:13)
CZ, welcome to Coin Desk Spotlight.

**Changpeng Zhao** (0:15)
Well, thank you for having me.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (0:16)
Thanks for being here. The first question I always start these conversations with is, take me back to a time, I want you to kind of think about the first time that you realized money mattered.

**Changpeng Zhao** (0:26)
I realized money mattered when I was quite young. I grew up in a pretty, I wouldn't say poverty, but pretty poor family.
My dad was on a student allowance, my mom was working for minimum wage. So we didn't have a lot to go, well, we were not starving, we had food, we had a place, we had shelter, but there's a lot of stuff we couldn't buy. So when I was growing up, it was always obvious that we needed money.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (0:55)
When you reflect on that now, I know you've spoken about that story a lot in your interviews over the years, but when you think about that now, how has that impacted your journey?

**Changpeng Zhao** (1:08)
Actually, to add a little bit to the earlier question, I think when I started working at McDonald's, when I was earning $4.50 Canadian an hour, that's below the minimum wage, I was 14 That's when you realize that now you have a tangible quantity of how much time gets you how much money and how many things can you buy with it. So I got exposure probably more quantitatively at around age 14
Then every time salary increases a bit, you get to know. Also, my dad always lived very frugally.
He passed that on to me somehow. So I think money is important to take care of yourself, but you don't need a lot of money to take care of yourself. You still need some decent amount. But after a certain number, money is just an enabler for you to do business. Then even with that, there's a certain amount that you need. After that, you don't need a lot of money, right? So strong funders are not limited by money, if you want to do businesses, et cetera. So beyond that, money doesn't matter that much. I think money is an important tool for people to transact, for people to measure value in the world, and to have a more global economy. I think money is important as a tool to make that work. And I think the money we have today, the technology is not very good. So I learned all of this through my career life, just incrementally.

**Jennifer Sanasie** (2:38)
My parents immigrated to Canada as well, and they were also very frugal. And I think about what they taught me about money, and it was always to save and be prepared for the future. And in a way, I think to get to where you are, you have to break past that, right? You have to break past that mentality of survival.
I'm so curious to hear how you think about that.

**Changpeng Zhao** (3:01)
Ah, okay. That's very interesting, too, because I come from my Asian family, and my parents always saved. And that's the same mentality, you got to save money. So throughout my life, I didn't take any meaningful debt or loans. When I bought a house, I took some mortgage. That's probably the only, probably like one of the larger loans I have. But I never borrowed money to start a business, etc.
Actually, that's not true. Actually, my sister did give me some money, etc. So I have friends and relatives, family members giving me some money. But I never really went out and took like high interest debt, etc. So any business I've involved with, there was always cash flow, right? So I want the business to be cash flow positive, and so that the business is self-sustainable. So I never got into the sort of heavy debt mentality, whereas I think in most, even in America, in most capital markets, borrowing is actually a strong tool, which is true, right? So you want to leverage, and you want to borrow so that you can expand quicker. Borrowing money will allow you to grow quicker potentially. So I never got into that side of the things in business. So there's still some, like I would say, Asian culture in me on that front, but my business philosophy is very capitalist.
You have to have a sustainable business, you have to provide value, and the money is an incentive for people to provide the best value that they can, and this is how societies grow, this is how innovation works. So I come from a blend, but my business practice style is much more American, but I never really took a lot of debt.