Gold Standard

Gold and Williams also decided to build a day-care center that could accommodate 75 kids. "Our accounting firm, our insurance company, and our lawyers all told us not to do it," Gold says. The cost per child for employees is $65 a week (there are also slots for kids from the community, though they cost a bit more). When people visit the company, Gold takes them on a tour that includes the day-care center, and he swells with pride when the kids run up to him shouting, "Mr. Mitchell! Mr. Mitchell!" "It's nice to come over here when I'm having a bad day," he says.

Perhaps the best part about the new buildings, perched on One Comfortable Place in Taylorsville, is the on-site café. Rural North Carolina, with its world-renowned pork barbecue and banana pudding, is not a great place for people who have trouble resisting caloric temptation. Gold and Williams's solution: Hire the best local caterer, Sean Robinson, to cook for them. Now employees lunch on tuna burgers, swordfish, and duck-breast salad with raspberry vinaigrette and feta cheese. Gold and Williams pay their respects to local delicacies by keeping liver mush on the breakfast menu (if you have to ask, you probably don't want to know).