The founders of multibillion-dollar companies are not like you or me. Building a corporate giant requires a combination of smarts, drive, and ruthlessness that normal people don't possess—and that's doubly the case when the company in question is the industry leader. This brings us to Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance.
Along with my talented colleague Yvonne Lau I spent weeks digging into how Zhao—or CZ, as he's universally known in Crypto Land—built a crypto exchange that became the world's biggest in barely a year, and that today towers over the industry. Unlike Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, who is fixated on Hollywood status and vanity projects, Zhao has a disarming charm and humble affect that conceals a cutthroat—and sometimes lawless—approach to business.
