Bob Lee, the creator of the payment platform Cash App, was killed in a stabbing in San Francisco early on Tuesday morning.
Lee’s death was confirmed by his father on Facebook, who said he and his son had recently relocated to Miami from the Bay Area.
“I just lost my best friend, my son Bob Lee when he lost his life on the street in San Francisco early Tuesday Morning,” Rick Lee wrote.
In a statement to NBC Bay Area, the chief executive of MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency company where Lee served as chief product officer, also confirmed the death.
“Bob was a dynamo, a force of nature. Bob was the genuine article. He was made for the world that is being born right now, he was a child of dreams, and whatever he imagined, no matter how crazy, he made real,” Josh Goldbard said in a statement to the outlet.
“Bob was the quintessential creator, leader, and consummate hacker. From large contributions to Android at Google, to being the first CTO of Square, in that time creating Cash App, and working with us here at MobileCoin, Bob surely had an impact that will last far beyond his short time on Earth,” Goldbar said in his statement. “Here’s to the crazy ones. We will miss you Bob. We love you.”
San Francisco police reported that around 2.35am on Tuesday officers responded to a report of a stabbing on Main Street, where they found a 43-year-old man with apparent stab wounds. Officers rendered aid, the department said in a press release, and called medics to the scene who transported the victim to the hospital where he died of his injuries.
The San Francisco district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, offered her condolences to Lee’s family on Twitter. “I want to extend my sincerest condolences to Mr Lee’s family members & loved ones for his loss. We do not tolerate these horrific acts of violence in San Francisco,” Jenkins said.
Police have not yet made any arrests or provided details on the circumstances of the attack. “This is an open and active investigation. For that reason we are not releasing further information,” officer Nicole Pachetti, a public information officer, said in an email to the Associated Press. “We will provide further details when they become available.”
The San Francisco supervisor Matt Dorsey pledged to assist in the investigation of the killing, which he called “a senseless tragedy that I know is made worse by the fact that no suspect is yet in custody”.
Rick Lee described his son as a smart and generous person who “would give you the shirt off his back”.
“He would never look down on anyone and adhered to a strict no-judgment philosophy. Bobby worked harder than anyone and was the smartest person I have ever known,” he said.
Lee held several roles in the tech industry. Before joining MobileCoin, Lee was the first chief technology officer of Square, where he co-founded Cash App, and previously worked at Google. He was also a startup adviser, and invested in companies such as Clubhouse and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Shock and tributes to Lee poured in from other tech leaders on Wednesday. Jack Dorsey, a founder of Square, described the killing as “horrific” and said on the social network Nostr that Lee was “instrumental to Square and Cash App”, while Elon Musk used Twitter denounced “violent crime” in San Francisco.
Others who shared their devastation about Lee’s death included venture capitalist Wesley Chan, co-founder of FPV Ventures. Chan said he befriended Lee more than a decade ago when they both worked at Google, at a time when software engineers like Lee were helping to build the Android smartphone operating system before its 2008 release.
“He was an incredibly iconic founder in the tech world,” Chan told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “He wrote large parts of Android when he was at Google. He became the CTO of Square and helped build Cash App. His resume reads something like a Fortune cover article.”
The prominent venture capitalist Ron Conway, founder of the San Francisco-based investment firm SV Angel, tweeted Wednesday that Lee’s loss was an immense tragedy.
“Deepest condolences to Bob’s family and to the entire tech community,” Conway said. “Remembering fondly when Bob gave an inspiring talk at our CEO Summit. We’ve lost a great innovator, intelligence, and spirit. Praying a suspect is apprehended swiftly.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
• This article was amended on 6 April 2023 to correct the spelling of Josh Goldbard’s name.
