Rahul Mehta walked into the room at IIT Madras wearing a red hoodie and brown trousers, and the first thing he did was apologise for his attire. His luggage had not arrived with him due to some airline mishap, and he had come straight from the airport to the event he was organising on campus. He had slept four hours and looked like he could have used four more. At a table nearby, two men were loudly discussing some business matter, oblivious to us, and Mehta glanced at them briefly before turning his attention back. There was an energy about him that did not match the casual clothes, a kind of restlessness that seemed incongruous for someone who had walked away from the money game nearly two decades ago.He built four companies in America, sold them all to names like HP, Veritas and Brocade, never took a loan, never raised venture capital, and stopped in 2006 because he had reached what he calls his “enough number”. Since then, he has funded eight schools across six IITs in fields ranging from biotechnology to data science to sustainability. The Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta Family Foundation, named after his parents, has supported more than… Read MoreYourStory RSS Feed
