Billionaire who works 16 hours a day brought his wife and kids to office to spend time with family

Todd Graves's Raising Cane’s has more than 800 outlets in the US and the Middle East and could finish this year with nearly $5 billion in sales. (Image credit: @toddgraves/Instagram)

“I can’t tell you how many 15, 16-hour days I’ve worked in a row,” billionaire Todd Graves said. “I had to miss a lot of stuff.”

The 52-year-old co-founder and CEO of Raising Cane’s restaurant chain in the US recently opened up about how building a successful business cost him to miss out on a lot on the personal front. Speaking to CNBC Make It, Graves said that after he became a billionaire, he had to spend such longs at work that at times, his wife would bring their children to the office so that he could spend some time with his family.

Now, however, Graves figured out a way to distribute his workload throughout the day in a manner that allows him to make time for family and friends anyway. For example, during vacations, he prefers to wake up at 4.30 am to work so that he can join his family by 11 am and spend the rest of the day with them.

“I’m as busy as anybody I know, I travel as much as anybody I know, but I can work my schedule where I can make most of the things I need to be at with kids, family or important friends,” Graves said.

He also noted that starting a business takes dedication and making it successful requires you to “multiply that by infinity".

Graves would know a thing or two about dedication; he has worked 90-hour weeks at a oil refinery in Los Angeles and gone fishing in Alaska so that he could save the money to open his first restaurant in 1996. Now, Raising Cane’s has more than 800 outlets in the US and the Middle East and could finish this year with nearly $5 billion in sales, CNBC Make It reported.