Kareem Saleh, Class of 1997, was editor-in-Chief of the Midway. Mr. Saleh is the founder and CEO of Fairplay AI, a company which seeks to ensure fairness in finance by evaluating the potential biases of the artificial intelligence models behind lending, credit risk and fraud detection. During the Obama administration, he helped manage the team which negotiated the Paris climate agreement.
Looking back on your time at U-High, what experience or moment had the greatest impact on shaping who you are today?
“Journalism: writing about things that affect your constituency, or that affect the kind of the broader world, in ways that resonate with them, ways that teach them things they didn’t know before, in ways that provoke thought, provoke emotion. So these are just essential skills for life, being able to communicate and persuade effectively.”
What achievement in your career are you most proud of, and why does it stand out to you?
“I founded this company, Fairplay AI, about five years ago. We call ourselves the world’s first fairness as a service company. We allow anybody using an algorithm to make a high-stakes decision about someone’s life to answer five questions: Is my algorithm fair? If not, why not? Could it be fairer? What’s the economic impact to our business of being fairer? And finally, did we give the folks our algorithm rejected a second look to make sure we didn’t deny somebody an opportunity they deserve?”
What is one goal or aspiration you still hope to accomplish?
“The mission of the company is to build fairness infrastructure for the internet to de-bias digital decisions in real time. So, financial services to start, but when we’re, you know, done with financial services, we’re going to move to insurance and employment and health care and all of these other domains where algorithms are being used to make high-stakes decisions about our lives.”
When you were at U-High, what career path did you envision for yourself, and what inspired that choice? How does your current career compare to what you once imagined, and what led to any changes in direction?
Even when I was at U-High, I knew that I wanted to build something. For a time, I thought that was maybe, you know, to serve in the government somehow and work on development projects in emerging markets, or I thought maybe it would be a nonprofit. And as you go out, the great thing about U-High is that it gives you a very versatile skill set and the ability to digest a lot of information and quickly determine what’s relevant. So, I think, you know, as I went on in my journey, I found that being able to ask those questions, being able to think critically about information and the options in front of me led me from the nonprofit sector to the government sector, to the legal sector, and now to be an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.
What key experiences or influences guided you toward your current career path?
“Honestly, the network that I built at U-High, I mean, just a terrifically smart group of people who are constantly pushing you to be your highest and best self. I maintain the friendships with the folks I went to U-High with to this very day. And I think it’s really been a journey of learning and inquiry, and, you know, we forged some really deep bonds that not only unite us to this day as friends, but also as thought partners, as interlocutors, as good citizens.”
Throughout your career, what event or experience has most challenged or reshaped your understanding of the country?
“Negotiating the Paris climate agreement. The United States is the indispensable nation. If we don’t lead then we cede some of the most important questions facing humanity to countries, frankly, that may have their self-interest at heart, and their self-interest may conflict with America’s self-interest. I do believe that American leadership was required to achieve the Paris climate agreement. A climate agreement without the participation of the United States would have made no sense because we are the largest emitter in the world. What working through the U.N. process to negotiate that agreement really drove home for me is that, for any shortcomings we may have, America is still the indispensable nation.”
