The data was from the IRC logs over the last 18 months or so. Data was scraped from the log files looking for messages that were directed at other users which created this directed graph. The data was then fed to Gephi to get the svg output.

A SVG Version of the file: http://stuff.janitha.com/startups_chatter.2.svg feel free to do whatever with it.

edit: a much higher resolution render by 'count': http://zoom.it/Lxrz