3: Prashant Mehta, Lightbox - Part 3/7 – Mission I’mpossible - Combining the Crazy with a Cause - a podcast by CXO Life

In this latest edition of TalkCXOLife, Sunayana Nair, Editor CXO Life interviews Prashant Mehta, Partner at Lightbox, a venture capital firm in Mumbai. Now, Prashant is also known as the endurance man. Why you ask? Imagine pedaling from Mumbai to Pune and back, that is about 330km, for 13 hours, and (no don’t run out of breath as yet) then within the same week of pulling off that feat, trekking to the Everest basecamp!
Well, that is Prashant Mehta for you ladies and gentlemen! 
Born in Mumbai, and having spent his growing years between India and Africa, Prashant studied biotechnology in the U.S. but ended up working for a bank, pursuing an MBA from Wharton School after which he headed straight to work for Lehman Brothers which helped him understand the art of investing in emerging markets. He subsequently moved to Silicon Valley to head Yahoo’s commercial operations for emerging markets.
In this segment, you’ll get to know of the crazy bike rides Prashant and his team have undertaken. The first such major ride was from Bombay to Pune and back. After just 6 weeks of training, Prashant and two of his friends endured a 13-hour road journey and kept pedalling away even as Prashant started feeling delusional midway due to exhaustion. Soon after the completion of this trip, Prashant trekked to the Everest basecamp and describes this as the craziest two weeks of his life. 
Another crazy ride was a non-stop Delhi Bombay ride with a targeted time of 60 hours which his gang manged to pull off in spite of the several challenges they faced and learned from. Prashant speaks of how these charity bike rides bordering on insanity are made possible when it is the heart which switches the gear during the trying times. For Prashant, a cause or a mission motivates him to push his limits much more than wanting to ace a timing or attain a desired speed.

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