Bob Lee, a tech executive and investor who founded the mobile payment service Cash App, was stabbed in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to his family.
San Francisco police said they responded to a call about a stabbing in the Rincon Hill neighborhood at about 2:35 a.m. Tuesday. Police have not identified the victim, a 43-year-old man with “apparent stab wounds”, who died in a hospital. But KPIX, the local CBS affiliate, reported that Mr Lee’s friends said he was the victim, which was confirmed on Facebook Wednesday morning by his father, Rick Lee of Miami.
Rick Lee said on Facebook that he moved in with his son after Bob’s mother passed away in 2019, and they moved to Miami together in October.
“Bob would give you the shirt off his back,” Mr. Lee wrote. “He would never look down on anyone and adhered to a strict philosophy of non-judgment.”
Tim Oliver Lee, Bob’s brother, wrote on Facebook about his brother’s death. “I was lucky enough to grow up with him and I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself,” he said.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said on Twitter that no arrests had been made as of Wednesday morning. “We will not tolerate these heinous acts of violence in San Francisco,” she said.
Matt Dorsey, San Francisco’s Democratic City Supervisor representing Rincon Hill, a neighborhood near the Bay Bridge, apartments and corporate offices, said on Twitter that Mr. Lee’s death was “a senseless tragedy which I know is compounded by the fact that no suspect is yet in custody”.
Prior to joining MobileCoin in 2021, Mr. Lee was the chief technology officer of the payments company Square, which was rebranded as Block in 2021, and was a software engineer at Google. He was also a startup consultant and, according to his LinkedIn, had invested in companies like SpaceX and Clubhouse.
Mr Dorsey, the San Francisco supervisor, said he had been talking to police about the investigation into the stabbing since Tuesday morning.
“I have also heard from many voters in the area – some of whom have already raised concerns with me about the public safety issues – and I am asking everyone to cooperate with the police in their investigations, especially those who have access to to surveillance videos that might help,” Mr. Dorsey said.
At the time of his death, Mr. Lee, 43, was the chief product officer of MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency start-up. MobileCoin founder and CEO Joshua Goldbard confirmed in an emailed statement that Mr. Lee passed away on Tuesday, but gave no cause.
said Mr. Goldbard on Twitter that Mr. Lee “was like a brother to me” and had a “kaleidoscopic” mind.
“Choose a topic and Bob would be there with you to tell you all the ways he’s already thought about the idea,” said Mr. Goldbard.
Condolences to Mr Lee poured across social media platforms on Wednesday as news spread.
He was perhaps best known for his work on Cash App, now owned by Jack Dorsey’s company Block. Mr Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, called Mr Lee’s death “heartbreaking” on the social media site Nostr. “Bob was instrumental in Square and Cash App,” he wrote.
So said the CEO of the design platform, Figma, Dylan Field on Twitter that he mr. Lee in 2006. “He didn’t care that I was only 14 and we were talking tech/geeks about programming,” said Mr. Lee. Field.
Bill Barhydt, the CEO of digital finance platform Abra, said on Twitter that Mr. Lee was “a generously decent man who did not deserve to be killed.”
Megan Quinn, a startup investor, said on Twitter that Mr. Lee was “always encouraging, always cheerful.”
“He was always smiling,” she said. “That’s how I’ll remember him.”
Violent crime rates in some major cities are still recovering from a 2020 surge linked to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Crime across the country has been on a steady decline for most of the last quarter century.
San Francisco’s homicide rate has risen slightly in recent years since falling to 41 people in 2019, the lowest number in nearly 60 years, according to the city. The number of homicides rose to 56 deaths in 2022.
According to the San Francisco Police Department, there have been 12 homicides in San Francisco on April 2 this year. In the same period in 2022, there were 10 murders.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
