CZ says college graduates should spend 2 to 5 years at big companies before starting a business

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, said young people should not rush into launching a business right after graduation. Speaking at a closed-door sharing session in Hong Kong, CZ responded to a question about entrepreneurship among college students by recommending that they first spend several years at a strong large company. He said two years should be the minimum, and described a range of two to five years as more appropriate. CZ pointed to his own four years at Bloomberg as an example. He said the management systems and organizational structure inside a major company are not something fresh graduates can usually access if they start a business immediately after leaving school, and that experience can be useful later when building a company of their own. He also said young people should focus on developing a distinct professional edge. In his view, competition is global, and broad skills alone are not enough. Using programming as an example, CZ said there are tens of millions of programmers worldwide, making it unrealistic to be twice as good as everyone else, but reaching the top 1% or even 0.1% in a field can lead to returns several, dozens, or even hundreds of times higher.