The start-up on track to finish 1 year in business with $20m in revenue - thanks largely to Facebook

Facebook is so good at ‘microtargeting’ that many e-commerce start-ups barely even bother advertising anywhere else — a shift with frightening implications for companies and consumers alike. Burt Helm reports

No one would mistake Ben Cogan and Jesse Horwitz for “brogrammers,” the jockish male coders swaggering across the tech landscape. Nor are they hustlers, the relentlessly outgoing types who quit their jobs to gamble on audacious ventures.

They are two bookish friends, ages 27 and 29, who until recently lived across the street from each other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York.