Former "Binancer" tells: CZ and the cultural core of Binance in my eyes

What does CZ think of the iron rule that Binance employees cannot trade for 90 days? Why are people from Binance so useful in reality?

Written by: JiaYi

Before I knew it, I have been away from Binance for 3 years. However, when I face problems in my daily life, I often wonder, if it were CZ, how would he make the decision?

"What you make money from is important, what you don't make money from is more important"

I remember a team dinner once, and somehow everyone talked about the crypto industry being too close to money. Many people were addicted to the vortex of making quick money, and lamented that human nature sometimes really can't stand the temptation.

CZ's casual remark has stayed with me till now. He said that he always believed that as long as he persisted in doing valuable things and doing good things, he would be able to make more money in the long run and have greater wealth and a longer-term future than those who only focused on making quick money and had a lower bottom line.

This sentence is also the crypto industry version of "slow is fast", and it has always influenced my Web3 values, making me understand that in this industry full of temptations, I should stick to not making any money and clarify my own value in the industry or society.

So when the news from the United States came out, I was personally very excited. My former colleagues and I immediately organized hundreds of people to write a petition, hoping that the judge could understand what kind of person CZ is.

There are many people who have been volunteers since the early days of Binance and have accompanied it in its growth. There are also practitioners who entered the industry because of Binance and have made achievements. There are also some users and former colleagues. There is a consensus on CZ in everyone's eyes. Everyone knows that he is one of the few people in the current crypto industry who has positive values ​​and makes positive contributions to the industry (there may be only a handful of him in the entire industry).

Employees’ interests give way to the interests of the exchange, and the interests of the exchange give way to the interests of users

Everyone should have heard that Binance has an iron rule: employees must hold the purchased tokens for more than 90 days before they can trade them.

In fact, CZ also talked about this issue at an internal meeting. The gist of it was that if you think you are good at cryptocurrency trading, you should trade cryptocurrencies professionally to make more money. If you want to create value through work, you should work steadily instead of trading cryptocurrencies, "because we are exchange staff, and cryptocurrency trading is extremely unfair to users."

This is indeed the case. No matter how high your position is at Binance, even if some of your transactions are accidental and the amount is not large, as long as you violate the clause of "competing with users for profits", you will be ruthlessly fired, and many of them are extremely outstanding employees.

To be honest, operating an exchange that serves global users will inevitably encounter conflicts of interest frequently. When the interests of employees conflict with the overall interests of the exchange, CZ often chooses to sacrifice the interests of employees. However, when the overall interests of the exchange conflict with the interests of users, he always stands on the side of users.

From this perspective, CZ's move to the United States is actually a similar logic. After all, Binance has grown so big now. No matter what happened before, if it wants to continue operating, someone has to bear the consequences. As the "number one employee", he actually chose to sacrifice his personal interests to safeguard the overall interests of the exchange.

This is also the logic of Binance's ecological chain: the interests of employees give way to the interests of the exchange, and the interests of the exchange give way to the interests of users.

Everyone’s trust comes from believing that CZ can lead Binance to become better

I personally experienced the rapid development stage from 2018 to 2019, when Binance expanded rapidly from 300 people to nearly 1,000 people within a year. During that period, the working form also changed from centralized office to distributed collaboration. It is really not an exaggeration at all. During that period, new employees poured in like a tide, and everyone could see many unfamiliar new faces every day.

But even if he manages hundreds of employees, anyone can still communicate with CZ 1v1, and it doesn’t matter if they are above the same level. Yes, this is almost impossible in a large company organization of the same size. CZ has always been happy to listen from the perspective of employees, mingle with everyone, and understand what is happening in all aspects of Binance.

Once when I was having an offline One on One with CZ, CZ had severe back pain, but he still insisted on having a One on One with me.

He was lying on a yoga mat with a computer on his chest, then motioned for me to sit on a chair and said, "If you don't mind, can I talk to you while lying down, because I'm not feeling well right now" (I was thinking, my god, as long as the boss doesn't mind, he actually asked me if I minded 😱)

During the conversation, he analyzed my strengths and weaknesses so deeply that I even thought he knew me better than I knew myself.

Another time, I said to CZ, "Boss, we really believe that you can lead everyone to do great things because you can always detect and solve any challenges before they become big."

To put it bluntly, everyone trusts CZ not because he is the boss, but because he can always make the right decisions at critical moments and win everyone's trust with facts. Everyone also believes that CZ has the ability to lead Binance to overcome various challenges and become better, so they support his decisions from the bottom of their hearts.

At the same time, he showed great respect to his employees. In my impression, CZ was like a robot without emotions when he was working. He never got emotional and never even spoke loudly. There was one scene that left a deep impression on me:

In the early stages of Binance’s development, everyone was thinking about producing better results for the company rather than just pursuing happiness among employees, so sometimes there would be heated arguments between different business heads; and CZ would sit aside, quietly waiting for them to finish arguing, and then slowly say, "Are you done arguing? Let’s think about what to do next."

He is so calm and can calm down the situation in an instant.

A cruel, gentle, and almost absolutely rational "decision maker"

So I think many of my colleagues may think that CZ is the kind of person who is "cruel but gentle".

"Cruel" means that his decision-making is not influenced by other factors, no matter how good your relationship with him is.

I remember when I was hosting the first Blockchain Week, one day CZ suddenly came to me and asked if there were any VIP tickets left for a friend who wanted to attend the conference. I directly replied to him, "No, boss, please ask him to buy the ticket." Then CZ stopped asking immediately and did not ask any more questions, completely respecting the ticketing rules and event arrangements.

As far as I know, if a friend asks CZ to introduce a project investment, he will also hand over the project investment-related matters to the corresponding person in charge, even if the person in charge refuses.

Is it "gentleness" or that CZ has always given his employees extreme respect? In fact, at work, CZ is a "decision maker" who is almost absolutely rational like a robot.

For example, he once said that he didn’t like rumors within Binance, and haha ​​even gave a clear definition, “Rumors are things that are said behind people’s backs but cannot be said to people in person.” At that time, Binance had developed to a certain stage, and CZ was often needed to be the referee for many things, such as when we thought someone was not doing well enough and wanted him to judge. When faced with such things, his approach was very simple:

I myself once had an incident at work and felt that the other party did not give me good support, so I went to CZ to complain. CZ’s approach was to pull the person involved into the group and let me debate with that person in the group, and everyone should be open and honest.

CZ believes that only by being honest can we make continuous progress, and we must be honest with users and partners. In daily meetings, any employee can directly raise any doubts or questions about the company. Many employees will ask CZ very sharp questions, and he will answer them, so it is very transparent. Everyone knows what Binance’s focus is and in which direction they should work hard.

So what I feel at Binance is a state of complete freedom. I can talk about anything, I can speak directly to my superiors on the microphone, and I can ask directly if I don’t understand the work goals. This is what CZ thinks and does. I think this forms the cultural core of Binance.

Why are employees from Binance so useful?

There is one thing I find quite interesting. Many people have said before that people who come out of Binance are nothing without Binance’s resources, but why are people who come out of Binance so useful in reality?

It's very simple. Binance has an employee-oriented training system. Everyone knows how to fight and how to fight.

Although Binance’s overall scale was not as large as it is today, the values ​​of everyone from the core founders to every employee were extremely upright. Everyone’s vision was to “Exchange the World”, to change the world and make it a better place.

This is also why many early Binance employees, who are particularly outstanding in themselves, are willing to give up their previous jobs and take a pay cut to join Binance, and are willing to work overtime for Binance. This is not forced by the company. On the contrary, at that time, Binance did not have strict requirements on employees' working hours and getting off work time.

But everyone was as motivated as ever. I basically worked all the time except when I slept. CZ and Yijie were like spiritual leaders, leading everyone to love what we were going to do. We were very confident and believed that we would do it well.

Another aspect is that CZ encourages internal innovation. For example, when the media business I am responsible for is adjusted, CZ will come to ask for my opinions and start new business based on my ideas. The company also often changes positions in personnel training to train employees to become "hexagonal players." To be honest, individuals can indeed develop better by learning in different positions.

Moreover, CZ usually respects the work scope of each business manager. Unless the person in charge has doubts about what CZ is doing, he will ask for his or her thoughts. However, the final decision is entirely in the hands of the person in charge, and he fully trusts the person in charge to make decisions. Of course, if this person is incompetent, CZ will replace him or her.

Overall, I benefited a lot from this experience. I am especially grateful to Yijie for giving me the opportunity to start my career in Binance. Binance has indeed changed me, and CZ has a profound influence on my code of conduct, daily work, and some decisions in my heart.

Before I knew it, I have been away from Binance for 3 years, but when I face problems in my daily life, I often wonder, if it were CZ, how would he make the decision?