The Dubai tycoon on how to make millions, quit the rat race and live debt free while partying in Emirates Hills

Name: The Dubai tycoon on how to make millions, quit the rat race and live debt free while partying in Emirates Hills
Uploaded: 2025-05-22T04:51:34+00:00
Duration: 17 min 34 s
Channel: Gulf News

Gulf News

5/22/2025

“We’re all a collection of neurons, electrons, protons — and morons,” says Mahesh Tourani with a sly grin, as he lounges inside his jaw-dropping Dh200 million Emirates Hills mansion.

This Dubai-based business tycoon doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t need to — not when he’s built empires across trading, finance, real estate, and technology, and yet declares, “I’m not a hustler, not a survivor. I’m a thriver.”
https://gulfnews.com/uae-success-stories/if-youre-creative-money-will-come-the-dubai-tycoon-on-how-to-make-millions-quit-the-rat-race-and-live-debt-free-while-partying-in-emirates-hills-1.500136178

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00:00hi everyone this is Manjushar Radha Krishnan I'm the entertainment editor Gulf News today I'm a

00:12part of Dubai success stories and I have with me mr. Mahesh Turani who's an entrepreneur a very

00:20creative person as well with a beautiful mansion at the Emirates Hills you should see our home tour

00:26video but before that we need to find out about how he was successful enough to buy such a beautiful

00:32home in Dubai well I'm sure that any home that you've covered would be an evolution so mine is

00:40no different I was studying in college my mother did not want me to study anymore I wanted to go to

00:48Harvard I was a very good student I was in Sydenham College Uday Kotarka I told you was my classmate

00:54yes my father fell ill so I was forced to join the family business well yeah let's put it this

01:01way he had a few trees I managed to make it into an orchard that was the so I will not take full

01:08credit for starting from scratch definitely what was your dad into it was in trading in textiles

01:16garments and toys but what I did was I reduced the business and I increased the profit ten times

01:22by value addition so instead of buying huge quantities and making five seven percent by

01:30small quantity and make hundred percent fifty percent so you hit upon an idea that every

01:35time it was an idea something new that if you if you are creative and money will come right because

01:43nobody else has it so they have no choice but to come to you they say you know what rich people attract

01:48money a lot more is that true like you come you come from a privileged background your dad had a

01:54business is it easier for you to multiply those millions no I don't agree with you I personally think

02:00it does a lot to do with DNA so it may happen that your father is a great entrepreneur and you get

02:07that particular DNA and it works for you it may happen that your mother is a very kindred soul lovely

02:14person but zero DNA for trading and if you have and I don't want to name them but I've seen some

02:21cross DNA since some friends of mine where the mother gives it to the son and the father gives it to

02:28the daughter the daughters are sharpshooters and the sons are useless so it's all you think it's all in

02:34the blood making money is in your blood yes definitely definitely I think we are the Cindy's definitely have it

02:42proof of the pudding you look at Cindy's all around the world there's so many and why are they so

02:48successful they go anywhere small little village in Italy I mean they have a shop which is doing very

02:54well also as the late Indra Gandhi once said when she was a student and she found a Indian in a village

03:02in Italy you know and she's one of the speeches she had told yeah every all the Cindy's so would you

03:08call yourself a hustler or would you call yourself a survivor what would you how would you characterize

03:13your journey I would call myself a thriver I love it yeah so basically and the Cindy's the first one

03:23when they went to 1947 was survivors and next 10 years they started hustling and after they were

03:34settled down they started to thrive so I'm in the thriving generation I love it I love it you're not

03:40a hustler but a thriver that's a great thing I know you I'm not a hustler I'm not a survivor but a thriver

03:46I love that I love that we should put that on our t-shirts yeah Mahesh I have to ask you I know you

03:52must have made your first million long time ago but how how successful did you feel when you made your

03:59first million that was independent of your dad's success yeah so basically when you trade you really

04:05don't know how much you are making because of cumulative so accumulate accumulation over a period of time

04:11but I do remember in 1985 having come from a Sydenham College with a business background I traded the

04:20Japanese yen and I told my father that we will sell all dollars and buy yen and in those days I made the

04:29grand sum of three million or four million dollars surely on an investment of six million dollars you

04:36know which was huge coming in six months you know 50% and I think that gave me the biggest thrill

04:43no that's amazing that you just used I think at the end of the day is you have to be creative with

04:49money as well in a weird way it's not just economics well all you have to use common sense it's not very

04:56common though exactly so America had the greatest deficit Japan had the greatest surpluses and the

05:03opposite was happening Japan currency was falling and America was rising it didn't make any sense to

05:09me common simple sense and I put my money where my brain what my brain thought right and I was

05:16successful right so you have also dabbled in clothes creating fabrics creating buildings so what

05:23happened was when I created buildings and always was keen on a big house and in those days Indians

05:29had started getting houses onshore in the with the help of locals they were building houses which are

05:36usually five thousand square feet land five thousand built up and about eight ten Indians had built the

05:43houses which are costing a million dirhams and at that time there was a very big businessman called

05:49Manu Chabriya which is Sony and he was building a house and everyone went ah it was three and a three

05:56three and a half million in Emerson's no it's all in Jumeirah in Jumeirah so I didn't even know he was

06:02doing that but I started building in there and I was so crazy that in those days where everyone the

06:09biggest businessman was building a one million house and the great Manu Chabriya was building a three

06:13million dirham house I will the ten million dirham house and everyone said this guy has lost it but my

06:19thought was simple I want to live a good life every day till I die so if I can't buy a great house I'm

06:26going to build a great one and I lived in that now since I lived in that and everyone loved it

06:32everyone said you have the knack why don't you start something in real estate so I started real estate

06:38my company was the first one Indian company for development and that's why I named it Indian on the go

06:45or Indigo properties I love it I love how you are like a real estate person a creative person etc you keep evolving

06:54is it yeah so also also because I was in the financial world I was the first guy to do H funds

07:02in Dubai I was the first guy to do private equity in Dubai I was the first guy to do Brady bonds in Dubai

07:08in fact the first Goldman Sachs account in the Middle East was mine also and I suspect even the

07:14Morgan Stanley one was mine and I did a lot of financial instruments which were quite dazzling to look at

07:22but very difficult to handle but managed to make a lot of money out of it so finance became my my second

07:30vocation after textiles and real estate became simon parallely my second vocation also finance and real estate

07:39as we went along I think the trading became a sunset industry I made a call in 2002 and I said this is going to sunset

07:50and it was happened to be a great call because I managed to liquidate everything at a very fair price

07:58and people now are selling at pennies to the dollars and still they can't sell so I managed to pull out of trading

08:04real estate I continued finance I got a little bored for a stop but I have a new avatar now

08:10yes tell me which is a very serendipitous thing that has happened to me I've always tried to double in private equity directly and one of the things that I did instead of private equity was a direct investment in a company and from the United States which is in platform engineering technology and somehow I was fascinated by the whole thing and

08:38actually I actually thought that this is probably the last investment I'm gonna make in my life

08:44and over the period of time I've invested more and more into it and I am pleased to tell you that

08:52it's now going to be I am pretty sure it is now going to be amongst the household names in the world it's going to be such a big company really and I own almost 50% of it I really hope

09:06and it was it's called pivotal technologies without the I so anybody can go into pivotal.tech but I cannot use the names but we have had fantastic contracts from I'll give you a hint just imagine the top three

09:24top three customer names that in the world you would like to have if it's on your wish list who are the top three and guess what we probably have it all or are going to get it all

09:37Mahesh tell me I know you've seen success as well but any businessman will tell us that you're defined by the failures as well how did what did failure teach you

09:47Mahesh tell me very fortunately the failures I've had have been after the successes so the failures what they have done is made a dent into what I own I recently I started an African trading business

10:04I'm I overestimated the capacity of the people who are my partners to to be able to take the burden of that much volume and it was my fault and I put my hand up every failure teaches you one thing to to not to be vain and always always accept the fact that you're

10:33going wrong at the outset rather than let the vanity make you go on and on and push your losses further and also the failures is a stepping stone to many success we learn so much from it

10:47right so what made you choose Dubai and how did Dubai help you in your journey so my grandfather was actually in the undivided India was a trader in Gwadhar the famous Gwadhar now

11:01and he was trading between Pasni Chobar which is now the Indian port

11:08Wadhar which is now the Chinese port and there they in those days there was a port called Sharjah and then there was Muscat and then sorry then there was Muscat then there was Karachi

11:21in India and there was Mumbai so this was a route my grandfather was trading so when we moved to when we had to migrate to India he decided we can't go to Pasni and Chobar because they are in Iran

11:38and Gwadhar is also part of Pakistan that left us two options either we do Muscat or we do Sharjah so he decided to come to Sharjah

11:45When was this?

11:47When was this?

11:48It was in 1950

11:49Oh so you had like an old third generation

11:51So my father came

11:53Second generation

11:54So my grandfather sent his middle son which is my father to Dubai in 1950 to this place called Sharjah and of course he didn't landed in Sharjah but he set up shop in Dubai

12:05Sharjah was a more famous sport than Dubai at that point of time

12:09Right right

12:10And that's all it was I would say what made them come here was hunger and the ability to fulfill your you know to not to starve to be able not to starve to be able to put food in your mouth

12:22And then you took it this far do you look back on your own Dubai success story and think yeah I did well

12:28I am very very happy with whatever little I have achieved I am not very ambitious at all

12:38I always believe that beyond a certain level of money it is not going to change your life

12:44So I have never chased it after a certain hurdle was reached it just normal working and the money just comes by chance

12:54More than anything else I am happy with the quality of life that I have lived

12:59Because I consider every day as a blessing from God and I must laugh and I must enjoy and I must have a great time

13:08From that angle I am probably more successful than anybody else in Dubai

13:13But if you success you measure my money then many people are much bigger than me I really don't care about it

13:20But I think you need to live a richer life that's your motto

13:23Yes

13:24Be rich but lead a richer life

13:26To be honest I think I have lived a life which is so beautiful I have no regrets

13:32Even if any day can be the last day I will be happy

13:35Right I was talking to Rajan Lal the other day and he was telling me one thing don't marry young

13:41Do you have such life lessons for those who are perhaps starting out etc

13:47Yeah

13:48He was a funny dude

13:49Well the other one is youth is wasted on the young

13:51Ask a wife or something

13:53Yeah right right

13:54Okay

13:55When we have youth

13:56We don't value it

13:57We don't value it

13:58Yeah we don't value it

13:59But I hope you really value your everyday on this earth as you said

14:03And like you said your relationship with money is very interesting

14:07You don't seem to be too attached to it

14:09No no no

14:10Or is it what rich people do

14:11No I don't know about the others

14:12All I can say is I have definitely reached a point where it really doesn't

14:22I think one of the blessings of God that I have is the ability to make me understand at a young age how frivolous the whole pursuit of extra money is

14:36Okay

14:37I am always saying the extra money

14:39Yeah last question

14:40I am not being hypocritical money is nothing

14:43No it's very important

14:45There is certain hurdle

14:47Today I can buy a yacht

14:49I can buy a plane

14:50I can do anything I want

14:52I mean why do I need more money then

14:54So my question is what's extra for in Mahesh Narani's world

15:01What's extra money

15:02What's your upper limit

15:03Where you are like I am done

15:04No it's a figure which is relative to your demands

15:07My demands are nothing

15:09As I said I hate travelling

15:10I love it

15:11I can buy a yacht

15:12I can buy a plane

15:13But my demands are like limited

15:14I love that

15:15No I don't need it

15:16I hate yachts

15:17And I hate travelling

15:19So I have a beautiful house here

15:22I have a beautiful house in London

15:23I have fantastic houses in India

15:26I have the best staff

15:27I have the zero debt

15:29And I have enough money to be able to live for God knows how many years

15:33I mean why am I striving for more?

15:36I like that

15:37Why?

15:38I love it

15:39I am so happy that you paid

15:40Because this guy has got more or that guy has more more?

15:43Please

15:44Yeah you can't be in that game

15:45Please

15:46Please go and you are happy to work from 7 in the morning till 12 in the night

15:50Please it's all yours

15:51No but Mahesh I want to ask you do people become your friends because of your perhaps your mansion?

15:57Oh some of them definitely

15:58But isn't that sad as well?

16:00In a pure way

16:01It's sad for them not for me

16:02What do I care?

16:03If you are going to judge me

16:06If you are going to be friends with me because of my money and you can delude me or make me feel that I am your friend because of me and not my money

16:16It's your loss

16:17You are kidding yourself

16:18Right

16:19I love that

16:20You are kidding yourself

16:21I don't care

16:22I love that

16:23I really hope you are surrounded by real things

16:25There are some well meaning people who are very nice

16:29Wonderful

16:30I really love them for what they are

16:33They come from different walks of life