He left his job to create a startup that guides cows by GPS and it is already worth US$ 1,000 million.

About 100 tiny yellow dots move within a triangle on Craig Piggott’s cell phone screen. Each dot represents a cow from his family’s dairy farm, located in the rural area of Waikato, New Zealand. All of them wear a thick, black, wireless, smart collar made of plastic, resembling a belt with a buckle and a solar panel. Standing near the fence, Piggott presses a button on his phone screen. Immediately, the cows lift their heads and slowly walk through the field towards an area with fresh grass. The bucolic scene is part of a demonstration video from Halter, the company Piggott founded nine years ago and based in Auckland. The goal is to show how it is possible to train and guide cattle using their virtual fencing system. The collars work through vibrations and sounds, and allow producers, via the app, to direct the cows to new pasture plots and keep them within the desired boundaries. The 31-year-old CEO explained via video call to Forbes Asia, from San Francisco, where his main ...