Bob Lee, the founder of payment application Cash App and chief product officer of cryptocurrency company MobileCoin, has died after an apparent stabbing in San Francisco in the United States.
Lee’s father and San Francisco police said the tech entrepreneur died early on Tuesday morning after being stabbed in the downturn area of the city, which is known for its vibrant tech startup scene.
“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 on Facebook.
The San Francisco Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to a report of a stabbing on Main Street, where they located a 43-year-old man suffering from apparent stab wounds. The victim later died in hospital and homicide detectives have opened an investigation into the incident, the statement said, without naming Lee.
Tech leaders expressed shock and paid tributes to Lee following the news.
MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard described Lee as a “dynamo” and “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,” Goldbard wrote on Twitter.
Ron Conway, a venture capitalist who co-founded San Francisco-based SV Angel, said the world had lost a “great innovator, intelligence, and spirit.”
“Praying a suspect is apprehended swiftly,” Conway said on Twitter.
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and Cash App developer Square, called the killing “heartbreaking” and described Lee as “instrumental” to the payment system.
Lee co-founded Cash App, an alternative to traditional banking, while working as the chief technology officer for Square – now known as Block – before joining MobileCoin in 2021. Lee had earlier worked for Google, helping to develop its Android platform.
