It isn't actually a contraction because people create groups or join groups based on a real relationship whether a common interest, common event, or common context. Each group is silo'd from the others and if you aren't in any other groups you won't know about them.

The connections between groups only happens when people you get to know in one group start to build a real relationship that expands outside of that current group's context and lead to the creation of another group whether for another shared interest, or temporary event.

As people create more and more of these groups and these "mini-Facebooks" start to overlap users a new social graph starts to take shape not based on a 1 to 1 friend request but on real relationships, topics, and events.

That's a good explanation of what your startup is, and I wish you the best of luck, but you did not answer his question.

We aren't changing any privacy settings with a bait and switch approach but in fact every group that someone is part of is something they either were invited to and joined explicitly or started themselves and invited others. every group is still private and you only know about the groups that you are in.

As more of these groups are formed we aren't exposing what groups you are in to other people joining. In fact other people joining don't know who else is on the platform unless they are in a group with them.

So this social graph that is being built isn't based on friend requests that have little inherent value but on the different groups you are part of that are based on specific relationships.

So what's your definition of "social graph"? In what way is "my list of my group subscriptions" a social graph? Is there a bigger graph? Who has access to that?