How Walmart Decided to Oust an Icon of India's Tech Industry

For Binny Bansal, the end of his long run as co-founder of India’s most successful startup came Saturday when he began calling colleagues to say he was done. The 37-year-old was stunned that officials from Walmart Inc., his startup’s new owner, were probing details of an affair years earlier. An investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, a decade after he created e-commerce leader Flipkart, he was calling to say goodbye.

His ouster, announced Tuesday from Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Ark., left workers at Flipkart, half a world away in Bangalore, stunned and struggling to make sense of the cryptic explanation. They worried about Walmart’s motivations and wondered if other Flipkart leaders would exit.