The Ex-Google Engineer Building A Halal Savings Account (7% Returns?)

Summary

Studying Islam in Mauritania

Tariq describes leaving the familiar Silicon Valley environment to study with traditional scholars in Mauritania for about four months. Daily life was difficult: there was no running water, electricity, or reliable phone service. He fetched water from a well, dealt with thorns and insects, and sometimes travelled by donkey at night to reach a place with a mobile signal for Google interviews.

He was drawn to Mauritania by stories of scholars teaching advanced texts in everyday settings—even while milking cows or riding camels. He says the experience deepened his religious learning, but its most important effect was personal: living with few comforts helped him reflect on how to use his time and what gives life purpose. He suggests that people can learn something similar through a short camping trip or time in a remote village, without necessarily travelling to Mauritania.

Lessons from Google and Silicon Valley

Tariq calls Google a valuable learning experience, while arguing that younger people may learn more quickly at a promising startup because they take on broader responsibilities.

His main concern about large technology companies is their focus on optimizing measurable outcomes—especially user engagement—without always asking whether greater use benefits people. He describes YouTube’s work to increase viewing time as an example: product optimization can become a cycle of trying to capture more attention. He sees a similar risk in AI if companies prioritize usage and growth over human welfare.

He does not characterize senior technology leaders as inherently malicious. Rather, he argues that commercial incentives can push people toward optimizing narrow metrics, even when the wider consequences deserve more attention.

An Islamic approach to technology

Tariq says the Islamic perspective is not to reject technology, but to assess how it is used, prevent harm, and encourage beneficial applications.

As an illustration, he recounts a historical discussion about sukuk—certificates that could be exchanged for food. The concern, as he presents it, was not to prohibit the instrument itself, but to address trading it before the underlying food had been owned. He uses the story to argue that Muslims should engage with new technology while considering its ethical and practical risks.

From Google and crypto to Goldsand

Tariq says he had wanted to start a technology company since he was young. He left Google wanting to work on something more meaningful than a conventional corporate career, and later began building companies with friends.

His earlier work was in blockchain and cryptocurrency. Over time, he and his colleagues became skeptical of parts of the crypto industry, which he compares to an early, poorly regulated phase of industrial capitalism: alongside useful innovations, there can be scams and incentives to pursue profit at any cost. He argues that Muslims should not simply dismiss the technology, but should help shape its development.

Stablecoins and the company’s direction

Tariq presents stablecoins—digital tokens designed to track a currency’s value—as useful for people who want to hold dollar value, make payments, or transfer money across borders. He says they are already used in some Muslim-majority countries.

He also discusses a longer-term ambition to develop stablecoins backed by real assets such as gold, commodities, or property. One concept he describes is over-collateralization: backing $100,000 of stablecoins with an asset worth more than $100,000, so a decline in the asset’s value would be less likely to undermine the token’s value. This is presented as a design idea, not as a guarantee that a particular product is risk-free.

What Goldsand is and how it aims to earn returns

Tariq describes Goldsand as a savings app intended to offer an alternative to leaving spare cash idle in a bank account. He says the product aims to provide a relatively liquid, lower-risk place for money people might otherwise keep in checking accounts. He emphasizes that it is not risk-free.

The company’s model, as described in the interview, works roughly as follows:

• Customers place money in Goldsand.
• The funds are deployed mainly into stablecoin payment networks and related opportunities.
• Those networks process payments and generate transaction fees.
• Goldsand says it shares some of the resulting revenue with its operating partners and customers.
• The company is also exploring other ways to generate revenue through financial technology, including real-estate tokenization.

Tariq says the return is around 7% per year, though it fluctuates. He explains that this is not a 7% charge on each payment: individual transaction fees are described as roughly 0.01%–0.2%, and the return comes from fees accumulating across a large volume of transactions. The exact future return is not guaranteed in the interview.

He says Goldsand generally takes a portion of the revenue—approximately 20% is mentioned—while the rest is shared among relevant operating partners and customers. The precise allocation is not fully clear in the auto-generated subtitles.

Intended role and product plans

Goldsand is positioned as an option for cash that someone intends to use in the near future, rather than as a conventional long-term investment fund. Tariq compares it to a savings account and says the company hopes to add familiar features such as debit-card functionality. He also expresses interest in supporting GBP-linked stablecoins and serving UK customers.

The stated aim is to help people earn a return on otherwise idle funds. Tariq also connects the product to reducing reliance on interest-based financial arrangements, including some uses of credit cards. He acknowledges that Muslims differ in their views on such matters.

Halal status, regulation, and risk

In response to questions about whether Goldsand is halal and safe, Tariq says the company has a board of scholars that reviews its products and that it has Sharia documentation. He also says its products comply with US regulatory standards.

He distinguishes Goldsand from highly volatile cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or meme coins, saying the funds are not held in assets of that kind. These are the company’s claims as presented in the interview, not independent verification of the product’s Sharia status, regulatory position, or investment risk.

Broader goal

Tariq’s broader ambition is for Muslims to have a greater role in developing and directing financial technology, rather than being limited to adopting products and systems designed by others. He describes Goldsand as one effort to combine Islamic finance expertise with emerging technology.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Ibrahim — interviewer and host from Islamic Finance Guru (IFG).
• Tariq Patanam — former Google engineer and Goldsand co-founder.

People and sources mentioned, but not speaking in the interview

• Scholars Tariq studied with or learned about in Mauritania, including Sheikh Rami and Sheikh Hadam.
• Ustad Nouman Ali Khan, Dr. Rania Awad, and other teachers mentioned in connection with Tariq’s education.
• Islamic scholarship and historical accounts cited during the discussion, including the account about Abu Hurayra and sukuk.