"or do we tell him to learn some math and CS first, and gain an appreciation for why the problem is hard and probably not worth taking on unless you really real

"or do we tell him to learn some math and CS first, and gain an appreciation for why the problem is hard and probably not worth taking on unless you really really know what you're doing?" The problem IS learning more math and CS, because odds are the people that make "yet another social network" already know about math and computer science as they use to be geeks. So you are an academic and you believe they need more academics. What they don't know is about marketing, aesthetics and art and psychology(things like Myers briggs PT) and all the multi facets that you need to know for a SOCIAL(people relationships) network. People that love to program machines use to have a defined personality, the most difficult thing for them to understand is that there are other personalities as well that are different from them.