He was the third of the six children and son of a prominent political figure, Abdul Ahad Karzai who was a member of the Afghan National Assembly during King Zahir Shah's time.
Since Mahmood's father was a close aide of The King, Mohammad Daoud Khan removed many prominent members of the Karzai family from the government.
Worrying about the safety of his family, Abdul Ahad advised his son to leave for America till the current political storm would calm down.
Mahmood was working two jobs from 1977 till 1983 and managed to save $60,000 which he invested in establishing a restaurant called "The Helmand" in Chicago in the year 1985.
Seeing the current business environment in Afghanistan, Mahmood decided to spend the majority of his time trying to rebuild his home country.
Mahmood believed that for the chamber of commerce to function efficiently it had to be an independent entity based on memberships, election, and without the government's intervention.
In the year 2006, Mahmmod Karzai along with Habib Gulzar, another Afghan entrepreneur, opened the first official Toyota dealership in Afghanistan.
After a couple of years of successfully leading AIC towards progress and profitability, Mahmood resigned as the CEO of 'AIC' to pursue his other goals.
[9] In the year 2003, Mahmood had the idea to build a city with all modern amenities including, sewer lines, clean water network, new electricity, and a communication system.
Building a city with the size of Ayno Maina required a considerable amount of capital investment to start the planning and design phase of the town.
[6] After reviewing the business plan and all the relevant documents attached with it, OPIC approved the finance of $3 Million to start the initial stage of building this new city.
[10] This capital would be used to draw a complete map of the town including the designs of the apartments and the rooms inside it, sewage system, clean water network, electricity distribution grid and many other necessities that are readily available in any well-developed country.
In October 2010, the Washington Post reported that Karzai could soon be indicted for tax evasion in the U.S., by the Internal Revenue Service though he is aware of the investigation, telling the newspaper: "I'm giving any charges", and insisting his only interest is "rebuilding Afghanistan."