Bob Lee, affectionately known as ‘Crazy Bob,’ was a tech whizz in the software development world where he helped design Android and started CashApp, before he was stabbed to death on the crime-ridden streets of San Francisco.
Lee, 43, had extended his week-long business trip in the Bay Area by just one day when he was killed on Tuesday night. An arrest has not been made.
The tech mogul was the chief product officer of San Francisco-based cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin and had recently moved Miami where he lived with his wife Krista and two daughters in an $1.8million apartment.
He was back in the Bay Area on business and decided to stay an extra day when he was stabbed, his friends told the San Francisco Standard.
The news of Lee’s death was first publicly confirmed by MobileCoin’s founder Joshua Goldbard, who tweeted that Lee ‘was an incredible human being. Saying bob’s name in the past tense feels ridiculous,’ and describing him as ‘an artist.’
His father Rick Lee later confirmed his son’s death, the New York Times reported.
Tech executive and investor Bob Lee, 43, who helped create Android and Cash app, was stabbed to death in San Francisco on Tuesday night
Lee, 43, had extended his week-long business trip in the Bay Area by just one day when he was killed on Tuesday night. An arrest has not been made
He was the chief product officer of San Francisco-based cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin and had recently moved Miami with his wife Krista and daughters in an $1.8million apartment
Goldbard said on Twitter that Lee ‘was like a brother to me’ and had a ‘kaleidoscopic’ mind.
‘Pick a topic and Bob would be right there with you telling you all of the ways he had thought about the idea already,’ Goldbard said.
Lee’s social media posts covered a timeline of his life, from personal posts with his family to the professional.
He was a loving husband, a caring father, a coffee connoisseur who traveled all over the world, and attended all the big tech events and festivals including SXSW, Coachella, TechCrunch and Burning Man.
But his life came to an end Tuesday when he was stabbed to death less than a mile from the office where he worked on the startup team of Square.
A friend who was planning to meet Lee in Miami this weekend told The Standard that Lee had been in San Francisco on business, had stayed an extra day and was killed on that day.
‘I’m still in shock,’ the friend said. ‘No way he did anything to provoke this and I feel like he would just hand his money and watch to a mugger.’
Police responded to the stabbing on Main Street around 2:35 a.m. to find a man with stab wounds. The victim was rushed to the hospital where he died.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner has not officially disclosed the victim’s identity or other details of the death. But the news of Lee’s death was publicly confirmed by the founder of MobileCoin, where Lee served as chief product officer.
Lee, who also started Cash App and was a former chief technology officer of Square, was well-respected in the tech world and has been heavily mourned since the news of his tragic death.
He was a loving husband, a caring father, a coffee connoisseur who traveled all over the world, and attended all the tech events and festivals SXSW, Coachella, TechCrunch and Burning Man
Bob, pictured with his wife Krista and two daughters, had decided to stay an extra day in San Francisco on a business trip when he was stabbed to death
Lee, who was an active investor in numerous companies, such as SpaceX, Clubhouse and Figma, co-wrote Bitter EJB, a book for coders aimed at helping them avoid common pitfalls when writing for the Enterprise Java Beans framework to develop web-based business applications.
At that time he had been living in St. Louis, Missouri, and had been working as an open-source developer for 10 years.
By 2004, Lee was living in San Francisco and working as an engineer at Google. While there, he assisted with setting up the core library for the development of the Android operating system.
As Lee’s tech career skyrocketed, he continued to donate to fundraisers throughout the years. In 2009, he posted to his blog that he was going to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco to raise funds for the American Liver Foundation.
After working for Google for five years, he was then hired by Square to develop its Android app in 2010.
That same year, he wrote: ‘Square is the top free finance app in Android’s market’ and ‘Android Surpasses iPhone in the U.S.’
In 2011, Lee, who also developed Cash App, became the company’s first CTO.
Lee, who was an active investor in numerous companies, such as SpaceX, Clubhouse and Figma, co-wrote Bitter EJB, a book for coders aimed at helping them avoid common pitfalls
Lee donated to fundraisers throughout the years. In 2009, he posted to his blog that he was going to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco to raise funds for the American Liver Foundation
Lee left Square in 2014 and then spent several years as an advisor for startups as well as an angel investor.
In 2015, he became the CEO of the local chat group app Present, which was presented as a way for women to connect. They hosted a pre-rally for the 2018 Women’s March in San Francisco.
In 2018, he described the mission of the company as bringing local communities closer together, to make the world a happier, healthier place, adding, ‘If you follow the news, I think you’ll agree the world could use this now more than ever.’
Lee later invested in his current company, MobileCoin, which later received a $66 million venture backing.
The company is a peer-to-peer payment processing system that made it faster and more secure to trade cryptocurrency from a mobile phone.
In 2021, he took on the role of CEO and said he hoped MobileCoin could ‘help the hundreds of millions of unbanked people worldwide’ by offering democratized access to digital cash.
As news of his death circulated on social media, tributes for the tech whizz poured in as friends and colleagues paid their respects to Lee.
Bill Barhydt, the CEO of the digital payments firm Abra, said on Twitter that Lee was a father and ‘generous human being who didn’t deserve to be killed.’
Former MMA fighter Jake Shields remembered the tech executive as a ‘loyal friend’, with Musk responding to his Tweet.
Shields claimed that Lee was ‘targeted’ in a ‘random mugging and attack’ despite being in a ‘good ‘ part of the city.
Other friends claim that Lee was ‘targeted’ in a ‘random mugging and attack’ despite being in a ‘good ‘ part of the city
Joshua Goldbard said: ‘My heart is broken tonight’. He added: ‘Bob was a force of nature. Helped to birth Android and CashApp into our world.
‘Moby was his dream: a privacy-protecting wallet for the 21st Century. I will miss him every day.’
Co-Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey said: ‘It’s real. Getting calls. Heartbreaking. Bob was instrumental to Square and Cash App. STL guy.’
Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk also commented on the horrific incident, asking the San Francisco DA what she is doing to ‘incarcerate repeated violent offenders’.
He said: ‘Very sorry to hear that. Many people I know have been severely assaulted. Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.
Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders Brooke Jenkins?’
Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk also commented on the horrific incident, asking the San Francisco DA what she is doing to ‘incarcerate repeated violent offenders’
So far this year in the city there have been 39 murders, which is up two from this time last year as an increase in crime is leaving residents worried.
Democrat Mayor London Breed said in February she is requesting nearly $30 million in additional funding for the city’s police force.
The San Francisco Police Department has encountered rising overtime costs for current officers as the force is experiencing a shortage of workers.
Between 2021 and 2022, the department saw a 121 percent increase in total overtime, according to KPIX.
SFPD officials have also been making targeted attempts to address crime in certain pockets in the city which are prone to incidents.
The San Francisco Police Department is currently experiencing a shortage of 541 officers.
Police are urging anyone with information to come forward by calling the SFPD tip-line 415-575-4444.
