We Speak Entrepreneurs

Todd Graves Got the Lowest Grade in Class for His Chicken Finger Idea. Raising Cane’s Just Passed KFC

Published

3 days ago

November 12, 2026

Todd Graves, founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, at a restaurant opening in California. Photo by Jbp2021, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The most valuable restaurant idea in America sells one thing. Todd Graves built Raising Cane’s on chicken fingers, fries, coleslaw, Texas toast and a sauce, and in 2025 the chain he founded out of a single store by the LSU gates passed KFC in United States sales, sitting behind only Chick-fil-A and Popeyes among chicken chains.

Graves still owns 92% of the company, and Forbes estimates his net worth at $22 billion, making him the richest restaurateur in the country and the richest person in Louisiana. Raising Cane’s posted $5.1 billion in revenue in 2024 and was expected to pass that figure in 2025, adding close to 100 restaurants to reach nearly 1,000 locations in 43 states, with average sales per restaurant of nearly $6.6 million, more than double the fast food chicken average. A United Kingdom flagship in London is planned for 2026 as the brand pushes international.

The founding story is the part every young builder should hear. Graves and his friend Craig Silvey wrote the chicken finger concept as a college business plan and received the lowest grade in the class. Every bank in Baton Rouge turned down his loan pitch. So Graves funded it himself, working 90 hour weeks as a boilermaker at a California oil refinery and then fishing for sockeye salmon in Alaska, saving roughly $50,000, which he combined with money from friends and family and a Small Business Administration loan. He opened the first Raising Cane’s on August 28, 1996, at age 24, and named it after his yellow Labrador.

Nearly thirty years later the menu has never changed and neither has the owner. In a franchise driven industry, Graves kept the company private, kept the headquarters in Baton Rouge where he was raised, and kept almost all of the equity. His stated goal is $10 billion in sales by 2030.

We Speak Entrepreneurs

Lucy Guo Left Scale AI in 2018 and Kept Her Shares. At 30 She Became the Youngest Self Made Woman Billionaire While Building Passes

Published

3 days ago

November 12, 2026

We Speak Media

Lucy Guo, co-founder of Scale AI and founder and CEO of Passes. Photo by KBDBK, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The most valuable decision of Lucy Guo’s career was the one she made on her way out the door. When she left Scale AI in 2018, two years after co-founding it, she kept her stake. In April 2025 Forbes named her the youngest self made woman billionaire in the world, and she earned the title while running a completely different company.

Guo, a self taught coder who dropped out of Carnegie Mellon on a Thiel Fellowship, co-founded Scale AI in 2016 at 21 with Alexandr Wang, who was 19. She ran operations and product design before leaving in 2018, holding on to just under 5% of the company. As Scale’s value climbed, a 2025 tender offer at a $25 billion valuation, followed by Meta’s June 2025 investment at more than $29 billion, that stake carried her net worth to an estimated $1.25 billion at age 30, passing the mark Taylor Swift had set. Forbes counted her among just six self made women billionaires on the planet under 40.

Her working days, though, belong to her second company. Guo founded Passes in 2022, a Los Angeles based platform that lets creators sell subscriptions, chats and content directly to fans in a brand safe setting. Passes has raised about $50 million across three rounds from investors including Bond Capital and Menlo Ventures, at a reported $150 million valuation, and has signed names including gymnast Olivia Dunne and Shaquille O’Neal.

The pairing is the story business students will study. One founder, two companies: the first made her rich because she kept ownership even after she left the building, and the second is the one she is still in the building for, building the creator economy platform she wants to run for the long term.