CZ's First AMA After New Book Release: 12 Questions Deep Dive into Entrepreneurship, Investment, and Life Choices

Original compilation: PANews

It has been one week since the release of the new book "CZ: My Life at Binance" by Binance founder CZ on April 15. Many participants from different niches within the crypto ecosystem have read the book this week. What kind of questions might they have? How will CZ answer these questions?

The following is the full transcript of the AMA on the evening of April 15:

1. How to Build Confidence from Scratch and Persist in Entrepreneurship?

You started from zero, with no resources or a complete plan. How did you build confidence, persist, and believe that the path you were on was right?

I was exposed to entrepreneurship very early on, initially as a developer participating in some small startup projects, which gave me a preliminary understanding of the startup environment. Later, I worked in companies of different sizes, including small firms and large enterprises. This gradually made me realize that my personality wasn't suited for a long-term stay in a highly structured, large corporate environment.

In contrast, I prefer the higher freedom and faster pace of change found in small teams and startup environments. Therefore, I have always developed in such settings and have attempted multiple startups.

During this process, I experienced many failures. So my advice to entrepreneurs is: you must control risks. When you fail, you shouldn't burden yourself with heavy debt. Try to raise funds primarily through investment rather than loans, so there's no pressure of mandatory repayment.

My growth was a long-term accumulation process: first, improving technical skills, then gradually participating in business and sales, and finally building teams.

The real turning point was the emergence of ICOs. I realized at the time that this was an opportunity to raise funds through this method, so I started assembling a team and seized this opportunity in 2017.

The entire process wasn't based on a clear plan from the beginning. It was about constant trial and error, adjustment, and gradually forming a path along the way.

Ultimately, there is no so-called success formula; everyone's path is different.

The key is to find a direction that suits you and create value for others.

2. How to Determine if the Direction is Correct? What if the Direction is Wrong?

Many people work very hard but can never break through, possibly due to being on the wrong path. How do you determine if the direction is correct? What should you do if the direction is wrong?

During low points in life, my experience is to keep moving forward. Often, situations improve over time—either the environment changes, or you adapt yourself.

But the more critical issue is direction. If you persistently do something without seeing results, then you must adjust your direction, not just keep repeating the same actions.

The reason many people get stuck is that their behavioral patterns themselves are flawed, such as having long-term expenses exceeding income or maintaining habits that are detrimental to improving their situation.

In such cases, proactive change is needed:

· First, control expenses to ensure a portion of income can be saved.

· Second, continuously improve yourself, learning a little new knowledge or skill every day.

Even people engaged in physical labor can set aside some time each day for self-improvement. Long-term persistence will bring about change.

Many people choose to spend their time after work on consumption, like entertainment or socializing. These behaviors only provide short-term satisfaction and do not lead to long-term improvement.

If a person makes no progress over a long period, they easily stagnate in place.

Sustained, small improvements not only improve the practical situation but also bring positive psychological feedback. Therefore, maintaining progress and an optimistic mindset is very important.

3. Do Ordinary People Still Have Opportunities in the Current Crypto Environment?

Now that institutions are entering and the industry is maturing, do ordinary people still have opportunities to achieve upward mobility in the crypto field? What advantages do they have left?

I believe this industry is still in a very early stage.

In my view, there have been three major technological waves in the past few decades: the internet, blockchain, and AI. All three will have profound impacts on society.

Although the crypto industry is much more mature than it was ten years ago, overall, it is still in its infancy. The current application of blockchain in the financial system is still very limited. Core areas like lending, payments, foreign exchange, and commodity trading are not yet fully on-chain.

Looking at the data, the population that has been exposed to crypto is about 7% to 10%, but the proportion of crypto assets held by these individuals is still very low, with the overall asset share being less than 1%.

This means the entire market still has enormous room for growth.

In the future, blockchain has the potential to become part of the global financial infrastructure, to the point where we may no longer distinguish between "traditional finance" and "crypto finance."

Currently, AI is attracting a lot of capital and attention, but this actually leaves more long-term builders in the crypto industry. This environment is beneficial for long-term development.

At the same time, AI will also integrate with blockchain in the future, for example, transactions between AI agents are more suitable to be completed via blockchain.

Therefore, this industry is far from reaching maturity, and there are still a vast number of untapped opportunities.

While it's impossible to predict the specific price movements of assets, from an industry development perspective, I remain very optimistic about blockchain.

4. How to Determine if the Direction is Correct?

In life or the entrepreneurial process, how do you determine if the direction you've chosen is correct?

I mentioned a viewpoint in the book: When you are at a low point in life, the most important thing is to keep moving forward.

This understanding was actually formed very early, even before I entered the crypto industry. In my experience, whenever I encountered situations with great pressure or some unfavorable events, if you could persist for a few days, things often improved. Either the environment genuinely changed, or you gradually adapted.

Often, the situation is not as bad as it seems at the moment.

I remember not long after I graduated, there was a period between two jobs. I took on a short-term consulting project that renewed monthly. At the end of each month, I wasn't sure if the client would renew, and this uncertainty brought a lot of pressure.

If the contract wasn't renewed at that time, my financial situation would be directly affected. I had just graduated, and that pressure was very real.

A few days later, the client did renew, which made me realize that a lot of pressure is actually short-term and doesn't necessarily persist.

Similar situations have happened many times in my life, including later when facing greater pressure, such as some regulatory or legal issues. The same logic applies: it looks very difficult in the short term, but as time passes, things gradually ease.

But back to the core question: If you keep moving forward, how do you know if the direction is right?

My view is that in most cases, you can judge by the results. If what you are doing does not produce any positive feedback, or if there is no improvement over the long term, then the direction might be wrong.

In such a situation, you shouldn't just keep persisting; you need to adjust your direction.

5. What to Do if the Direction is Wrong?

If the direction is wrong, the most important thing is not to persist but to change.

The reason some people can't get out of their predicament is that they keep repeating the same behaviors, but these behaviors themselves are ineffective. In such cases, if you don't change, you cannot possibly get different results.

I've observed a very common problem: many people are in a long-term state of "expenses exceeding income." They develop a fixed consumption habit, needing to maintain a certain standard of living, but their income cannot support it.

As a result, they remain under constant pressure, unable to escape their predicament.

In such cases, the first step must be to control expenses.

For example, you can reduce some non-essential spending:

· Go to bars less often, eat out less, reduce entertainment expenses.

These adjustments don't really affect basic living standards but can give you some financial breathing room.

The second key point is: continuous learning and self-improvement.

No matter what job you do now, even physical labor—like construction worker, restaurant server, dishwasher (jobs I've done myself)—you can still set aside a little time each day to learn.

It could be reading books or learning a new skill.

If you make a little progress every day and simultaneously control your expenses, you can gradually regain control of your life.

This process might not be fast; it could take years, or even longer, but it is an effective path.

Many people fail to improve because after work, they only rest or entertain themselves, like watching TV or scrolling through social media. These behaviors provide short-term relaxation but do not lead to long-term improvement.

If there is no progress over the long term, a person will stagnate in place.

Once you start making continuous progress, you gradually generate positive feedback and find it easier to maintain motivation.

6. What Are Your Feelings After Finishing This Book?

After completing this book, my biggest feeling is "a sense of relief."

This was a very long project, not just the writing itself, but also many other tasks, like repeated revisions, communication with editors, deciding on publishing methods, designing the cover, applying for ISBN, etc.

The entire process involved a lot of details, and each step required time and effort.

Regarding writing, I also gained some experience. I read some books by other authors on how to write an autobiography, and one important point was: the first draft is always terrible.

You need to get all your ideas out first and then revise repeatedly. I revised probably over ten to twenty times, with each round taking two to three weeks.

Writing a book is actually a process of repeated polishing, not a one-time completion.

Another reality is: writing an autobiography almost inevitably offends people.

Because if you want to truthfully recount experiences, you must talk about problems, and these problems often involve specific people. As long as you express genuine feelings, you will inevitably make some people uncomfortable.

So writing an autobiography is not just a writing challenge but also a psychological one.

At the same time, after publication, you will be scrutinized and even criticized by more people. This is also a part of writing a book that must be faced.

But from another perspective, this is also valuable. Compared to fragmented expressions on social media, a book can present your experiences and perspectives more completely, allowing others to understand you more systematically.

7. What Do You Hope Readers Gain from the Book?

My purpose in writing this book was not to create a textbook or a methodology book teaching people how to succeed.

What I wanted more was to tell my own experiences completely, allowing others to understand these events from my perspective.

In the crypto industry, including Binance itself, there have always been many negative narratives and misunderstandings. Many people have some one-sided understandings of this industry, the company, and even me personally.

And these perceptions often come from external information, not from the perspective of the person involved.

So I hope through this book, everyone can see:

· What we experienced at the time, how we made decisions, what I was thinking when facing problems.

· I also wrote about many problems and difficulties in the book, not just the successful parts. Because if you only talk about the good things, it's not authentic.

Additionally, I didn't deliberately exaggerate the stories. In fact, I even deleted some more "dramatic" content.

Some things weren't included because:

· They are still too recent and still developing.

· Or they involve legal, regulatory, or other ongoing matters.

If a second edition is written in the future, more content might be added.

So overall, the core goal of this book is to allow readers to understand this experience more authentically, not to provide some standard answer.

8. How to Avoid Missing Excellent Projects?

Many investors missed Binance back in the day. Now you are also investing yourself. How do you avoid making the same mistake and not miss truly excellent projects?

To be honest, this situation is unavoidable.

In the early stages of a project, the information you can see is very limited. Usually, there's just an idea plus a founder, and the project itself hasn't truly materialized.

In such cases, you can almost only judge the founder, not the project.

So even I, if I had looked at Binance from an investor's perspective at the time, might not have invested.

Similarly, now when I invest, I will also miss some projects that might succeed in the future. This is inherent to the nature of investing and cannot be completely avoided.

Investing is not about capturing every opportunity, but about achieving positive returns overall.

That means:

· You will miss many good projects.

· You will also invest in many wrong projects.

The key is that the few successful projects can cover the losses from the failures.

So I don't try to "not miss any opportunity" but accept this reality.

9. What Do You Value Most When Investing?

In early-stage investing, the core is still the founder.

I tend to invest in people with a long-term sense of mission, not those focused solely on short-term gains.

A relatively clear way to judge is: people who persist in building projects even during bear markets.

If the market environment is poor, the crypto industry is in a downturn, but this person is still continuously working on their project, then they are more likely to be a long-termist.

In contrast, during bull markets, many projects with high valuations emerge. These projects look attractive in the short term, but it's hard to judge which ones will truly last long-term.

So personally, I tend to invest more actively during bear markets.

Besides that, I also look at some basic factors, such as:

· Whether there is already a product or prototype.

· Whether there is some execution capability.

· Whether they can move forward quickly.

Now with AI, creating a prototype is very fast, so I prefer to see actual execution rather than staying at the idea stage.

Another important factor is valuation.

If a project has no product, no users, yet demands a very high valuation, I usually won't accept it.

Of course, investment judgment is a team effort. Our team conducts more in-depth due diligence, while I personally judge founders more from intuition and experience.

10. How to Judge if a Crypto Project Has Long-Term Value?

In the current market, there are many narratives and trending projects. How do you judge which crypto projects or narratives possess long-term value, and which are just short-term hype?

There's no absolute method for this question, but it can be judged through multiple signals.

First, a very important indicator is the project's development activity, such as commit history on GitHub. If a project has continuous code updates and developers constantly participating, it shows the project is genuinely being pushed forward.

You can think of this as whether a project "has life." As long as development activity persists, it means the project is still developing.

Many projects engage in heavy marketing initially, launch a version, and gain attention in the short term. But if subsequent development activity drops rapidly, the long-term value of such a project is questionable.

Sometimes you'll find that a decline in development activity precedes a price drop.

The second important factor is whether the project has experienced multiple market cycles.

If a project has persisted through multiple bull and bear cycles and continues development even during bear markets, it is more likely to be a long-term project.

Conversely, some projects are very hot in one market cycle but almost disappear in the next. These projects typically lack sustainability.

For example, some once very popular projects are hardly mentioned after one cycle, and even if they are still being developed, their activity and influence have significantly declined.

The third factor is the founder's history.

If a founder changes projects every one or two years, it can be inferred that the lifecycle of their current project won't be very long either.

Although exceptions exist, overall, the founder's willingness for long-term commitment is an important signal.

Looking comprehensively, I value:

· Development activity.

· Whether it has crossed cycles.

· Founder history.

In contrast, I don't overly rely on price or market hype to judge.

11. What is the Real Situation Behind Binance's Success?

The outside world sees more of Binance's growth and success. Are there some lesser