The Spiritual CEO
Founder of Genie AI, Rafie Faruq, explains how he leads with spirit
Reading time: 4 minutes
Today, 34-year-old Rafie Faruq is one of the UK’s most exciting tech entrepreneurs. As CEO and co-founder of Genie AI, a Google-backed legal tech company that secured nearly $20 million in funding last year. He has led the company to be recognised in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list. But ask him what he attributes his success to, and he’ll tell you plainly: his relationship with his inner self.
In an era where entrepreneurship and wellbeing are often treated as separate pursuits, Faruq is leading a movement that dissolves those distinctions. For him, business is a form of creation — and so is spirituality. “They’re not separate,” he says. “A strong spiritual practice enables strong creativity and the creation of business is the business of creativity.”
While most children were immersed in playground games, a 10-year-old Faruq was deep in existential contemplation, questioning the nature of god and the limitations of religious discourse at school.
By the age of six, he was practicing kundalini-style meditations, techniques he would formally encounter only decades later. He remembers energising himself before his primary school entrance exam, and as a teenager, filling journals with detailed dream records, many of which appeared to come true months later.
With limited access to the early internet, he found answers in books. He devoured titles on mysticism, metaphysics and the esoteric at his local library and later created thriving online spiritual communities that attracted thousands of seekers from around the world.
His parents, neither religious nor spiritual, affectionately joked that he was “from another planet.” But by his late teens, it became clear that he was simply ahead of his time.
After moving to London, Faruq began studying with teachers at the College of Psychic Studies while working by day as a bond and derivatives trader at a Japanese investment bank. A gifted coder since the age of 11, he recognised the role artificial intelligence would play in shaping the future of work. This led him to pursue an MSc in Machine Learning (AI) at UCL taught in partnership with Google DeepMind. His 2017 thesis on generative AI anticipated the boom that GPT models would later spark, and focused on using AI to generate structured legal text.
“I realised that legal documents are the lifeblood of human and business relationships,” he says. “The biggest social and ethical impact we could make with these algorithms was in law.” Today, Genie AI is transforming the legal landscape. With more than 150,000 users, and hundreds joining daily, the platform enables in-house legal teams and founders to draft and review contracts in minutes, with Agentic AI that delivers accuracy and efficiency at scale.
But Faruq’s leadership isn’t about chasing metrics. It’s grounded in a broader vision for humanity.
“Society is over-mechanising itself,” he says. “That’s what maximises GDP in a capitalist framework. But it’s not sustainable.
We need to shift our purpose from ‘more is better’ to ‘balance and harmony.’”
Outside of his role as CEO, Faruq teaches meditation and energy practices through workshops across London and online. He spent most of his life following the Raja and Jnana yoga paths, and in recent years trained formally in Bhakti, Kundalini and Hatha-Vinyasa yoga, with certifications in Bhakti Kirtan (with Nikki Slade) and Krama Yoga (with Michael Wong). His studies have taken him to ashrams in India, where he deepened his practice in tantra and the Himalayan traditions of Kundalini Yoga, as well as took initiation in Kriya Yoga from Yogiraj Siddhanath.
“What is taught today is mostly yoga asana,” he explains. “But yoga is a path to realise divinity. My mission is to bring it back to its spiritual foundation. To share practices that unlock subtle energy, awaken siddhis and elevate consciousness.”
Faruq travels the world to uncover ancient wisdom from other cultures, in order to create unity across all people. He has meditated in the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza to the Foundation Stone in Jerusalem, the megalithic temples of Malta, the Moai Statues of Easter Island, the Glastonbury Tor and many other power sites. These pilgrimages have cultivated the idea of what he calls “the pathless path” — a reverence for all paths and wisdom traditions that transcend borders and doctrines.
Spiritual practices aren’t just a personal refuge though, they actively shape Faruq’s work. A conscious breathwork session with Connect Ventures, one of Genie’s investors, once sparked a breakthrough business decision he’d been struggling with for months, and he starts all big company events with breathing techniques.
“When you can access deeper awareness, you gain a bird’s-eye
view of the problem. Solutions are downloaded faster and better,” he says.
It’s this integration of mysticism and logic, heart and head, that sets Faruq apart. While many spiritual teachers rely on inherited knowledge, his approach is rooted in direct experience, rigorous study and real-world application — whether that’s guiding a student toward self-discovery or leading a team through complex AI innovation.
He is under no illusion about the power or the risks of AI. “We’ve conflated intelligence with humanity,” he says. “AI will be more intelligent than us — but not human. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t feel. It predicts. That will push us to reconnect with what makes us truly human: creativity, emotion, inspiration.”
He believes AI could help resolve what he sees as a modern spiritual crisis: disconnection. As machines become more advanced, the imperative for human connection, authenticity and fulfilment becomes even stronger.
“We were never meant to be walking databases,” he says. “AI will force us to move toward multi-layered communication and true connection. Something we desperately need in the face of today’s loneliness epidemic.”
Whether teaching in a candlelit room, coding the future of law, or meditating in ancient temples, Faruq embodies a rare congruence. Mystic. Technologist. Entrepreneur. Teacher.
“I’ve always had a deep empathy for all people on earth, no matter whether I know them or not,” he says, “and a drive to make a difference. That’s the energy that fuels everything: my practice, my leadership, and my life.”
For further information on Rafie Faruq and his events follow @Rafiefaruq on Instagram or visit: RafieFaruq.com
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
