Larry Peter grew up in Sebastopol picking prunes, grapes, and raspberries to pay for school clothes and bicycles. His father worked a green chain at a lumber mill for 40 years and never stopped talking about the dairy farm that he wished he’d raised his kids on. Larry got his first taste of the industry in high school, washing bottles and feeding calves at Miller’s Dairy for $35 a week. After graduating, he spent a decade at American Door, riding a bicycle — not driving — so he could save money. He paid cash for his first house at 18 with no co-signer, having sold his Corvette to make it happen. Then he paid cash for a second, and a third, eventually living in 15 different properties by 1985, using them as leverage to borrow against. That’s how he bought 320 acres and went into the dairy business, paying 25% interest on cows he couldn’t yet afford. When the cow margins got tight, he started a potato operation, then a pumpkin patch. When the county told him he couldn’t run retail out of his dairy, he bought the schoolhouse and started making cheese out of it in 1995. Then in 2004, Petaluma Creamery — a cooperative that 475 local farmers had belonged to — shut down after 91 years of continuous operation. Larry came down to buy a cream separator and ended up buying the whole facility. Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/05/15/petaluma-creamery-salesforce-ai-agents-saved-family-business/ submitted by /u/fortune
Originally posted by u/fortune on r/ArtificialInteligence