CZ shares his early experiences: from working at McDonald's to becoming self-sufficient and then turning to tech entrepreneurship.

CZ shared a podcast interview video on the X platform, in which he stated that he worked at McDonald's when he was about 14 years old. At that time, the minimum wage in British Columbia, Canada, was CAD 6 per hour, but McDonald's paid him only CAD 5.5 per hour due to a special exemption. He started learning programming in high school and hesitated between the University of Waterloo and McGill University when choosing a university. Influenced by a friend's mother, he chose McGill to study biology, but switched to computer science after one semester. He avoided student loans by working summer and academic year jobs. He received some support from his father and sister in his early years, but later became completely self-sufficient. In his twenties, he turned to business development.