Thanks for such a detailed advice. Couple of things regarding the example of a regular person trying to connect with say Travis, Mark cuban or trump. - First of all I think those might be desired but are mostly less frequent cases so designing a platform around that is not ideal IMO - I like your friends take on it. But like you said there is a problem with it. I think this idea can really solve the problem of introduction through mutual connections though. Because lets say you asked a friend for an introduction to somebody influential. Because the platform knows how your friend initially connected with that influential person( By contact forms or well defined edges), the platform can hint you the quality of your friends connection with that person.

It is a tough but interesting problem.