> Helen Toner was a relatively unknown 31-year-old academic from Australia—until she became one of the four board members who fired Sam Altman

> Toner graduated from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2014 with a degree in chemical engineering [...] In 2019, she spent nine months in Beijing studying its AI ecosystem. When she returned, Toner helped establish a research organization at Georgetown University, called the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, [...] She succeeded her former manager from Open Philanthropy, Holden Karnofsky, on the OpenAI board in 2021 after he stepped down.

Honest question, how do people find themselves in the board of one of the hottest startups at the tender age of 31? Are they geniuses or is it all about connections?