Tech executive Bob Lee, who founded the mobile payment service Cash App, was killed in a stabbing in San Francisco, according to authorities and media reports.
Police responded at about 2:35 a.m. Pacific time Tuesday to a report of a stabbing on Main Street in the Rincon Hill neighborhood, near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the San Francisco Police Department said in a news release. Officers found a 43-year-old man suffering from stab wounds and administered aid.
After paramedics were called to the scene, the man was taken to a hospital, where he died, police said. The attack is under investigation, and no arrests have been made.
Lee created Cash App and was currently chief product officer of MobileCoin. Police did not identify the victim but MobileCoin confirmed Lee’s death in response to an email from The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“Our dear friend and colleague, Bob Lee passed away yesterday at the age of 43, survived by a loving family and collection of close friends and collaborators,” MobileCoin CEO Josh Goldbard said in a statement.
Lee was fatally stabbed in the densely populated Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, near Google’s office and Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants. The neighborhood is a mix of offices and modern condo buildings.
His death further enflamed debate over public safety in San Francisco and its moribund downtown, which has not yet bounced back from the pandemic. Twitter’s owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that “violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately” and tagged the city’s district attorney.
San Francisco suffers from property crime more than violent crime, which includes murder, rape, robbery and assault.
In a statement, San Francisco Mayor London Breed called the homicide “a horrible tragedy” and said that the city is prioritizing public safety.
“I’m confident that when the police make an arrest in cases like this, our district attorney will do what’s necessary to hold any individuals accountable for their actions,” she said.
“No one who commits a violent crime, or who’s a repeat offender are receiving overly lenient plea deals,” Jenkins said.
Lee’s friend, mixed-martial artist Jake Shields, wrote on Twitter that Lee “was in the ‘good’ part of the city” when he was stabbed, on a block near luxury condominium complexes and many office buildings, including Salesforce Tower.
Though public concerns over crime have gripped San Francisco in recent years, adding fuel to last year’s district attorney recall campaign and pushing top officials to adopt more law-and-order stances. Overall violent crime fell 13.6% from 2019 to 2022, and incidents decreased from 6,152 to 5,315, according to police statistics.
Still, some individual categories of crime surged during that time: Homicides rose 36.6%, from 41 to 56, though the count in 2019 represented San Francisco’s lowest number of killings in more than half a century.
The Police Department has investigated 12 homicides so far this year, compared with 10 during the same time period last year, according to crime statistics.
San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the area where Lee was killed, said he has heard from constituents who expressed concerns about public safety and encouraged residents to help with the investigation, especially those who many have surveillance video.
“My heart goes out to Mr. Lee’s family members, friends and loved ones,” Dorsey tweeted. “This is a senseless tragedy that I know is made worse by the fact that no suspect is yet in custody.”
The police statement did not provide any details on the circumstances of the stabbing.
“This is an open and active investigation. For that reason we are not releasing further information,” Officer Niccole Pacchetti, a public information officer, said in an email. “We will provide further details when they become available.”
Lee had worked at MobileCoin since 2021 and previously served as chief technology officer at the payments platform Square, which has since been renamed Block, in addition to founding Cash App.
Lee came to MobileCoin as an early stage investor and adviser, then became chief product officer and helped launch the Moby app, Goldbard said. Lee was the chief technology officer at digital payments company Square in 2013 when it launched a money transfer application now known as Cash App.
Among the tech leaders to share their devastation about Lee’s death was 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 said by phone 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.”
But Chan said Lee was also generous in helping to coach and champion other engineers and tech entrepreneurs who’d call on him for advice. And he was modest about his key role in developing successful products, such as the widely used Cash App.
“With everything that Bob worked on, it was always a pleasant surprise,” Chan said. “That’s one of the things I loved about him. He was always humble about it, he’d say, ‘Oh, I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but we’ll try.’”
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 and Los Angeles Times contributed
