Chicago

 The 30-year-old CEO in Chicago is changing the way we buy from local businesses. And trying to make billions doing it.

In my last post, I wrote about my desire to have happy people working for me. Perhaps I could have been clearer when I said that I fire unhappy people.

About 10 years ago I was having my annual holiday party, and my niece had come with her newly minted M.B.A. boyfriend. As he looked around the room, he noted that my employees seemed happy. I told him that I thought they were.

Then, figuring I would take his new degree for a test drive, I asked him how he thought I did that. “I’m sure you treat them well,” he replied.

“That’s half of it,” I said. “Do you know what the other half is?”

Six days a week, in fair weather and foul, two dozen door-to-door salesmen, all of whom live clustered together in an apartment complex in Oak Brook, a suburb west of Chicago, pile into SUVs and cars and head into the big city, bent on sales of home security systems.

And on Sundays, their one day off, they drive together to the nearest house of worship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.