Raising Cane’s Todd Graves Spills Secrets on How He Became a Billionaire

Baton Rouge, Louisiana (KMDL-FM) - Founder of Raising Cane's Todd Graves is the richest man in Louisiana, and one of the most wealthy people in America with a current net worth of $20 billion.

That amount of money is hard to realistically get your head around.

In a recent interview with the YouTube channel "School Of Hard Knocks" he was asked to share how he built his multi-billion dollar chicken empire and share a few secrets that could help others possibly achieve their dreams.

The result is one of the most important interviews with CEO Todd Graves you're likely to watch.

Raising Cane's Todd Graves

Todd Graves, was born in 1972 in New Orleans, and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Although it's widely believed he graduated from LSU, he actually attended and graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia.

After graduation Graves moved back to Baton Rouge where he along with friend Craig Silvey opened the first Raising Cane's outside the gates of the LSU campus.

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It's worth noting that while in college Graves almost flunked a class after submitting his business plan for Raising Cane's with his professor telling him a restaurant serving only chicken fingers would never work.

As of 2025, Raising Cane's now has over 900 locations across the U.S. and the Middle East, employing over 65,000 crew members.

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Todd Graves' School Of Hard Knocks Interview

In July (2025), the YouTube channel "School Of Hard Knocks" flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the Mother Ship location of Raising Cane's to interview founder and CEO Todd Graves to pick his brain and get some insight into what makes Graves so successful.

Anyone who has become worth $20 billion selling only chicken fingers has to have some secret sauce going on, pun intended.

From School Of Hard Knocks -

We went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to interview billionaire Todd Graves who founded Canes. He started with one location in his college town and his since scaled Canes into a world-wide multi-billion dollar empire.

 

Todd shared EVERYTHING in this interview from how he got the money to start his first location all the way up to how he scaled the business into an empire.

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The School of Hard Knocks is a media company and YouTube channel that promotes financial literacy and career mentorship, and they do it in a really fun and engaging way.

This interview with Todd Graves of Raising Cane's is really a great interview.

Graves talks about what he did to be able to open the first Raising Cane's in Baton Rouge, tips on negotiating with banks to get business loans, business negotiation tactics, financial advice, and much more.

Check out the video below.