Cash App founder and former Square CTO Bob Lee has been identified as the man stabbed to death near downtown San Francisco early Tuesday morning, according to Lee’s current employer, cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin.
Police were called to a report of a stabbing in the 400 block of Main Street in the Lincoln Hills community around 2:35 a.m. Officers located the victim, who died of his injuries after being taken to hospital, police said.
As of Tuesday evening, the city’s medical examiner’s office had not identified the case, but friends and colleagues of Li told KPIX that he was the victim. On Wednesday morning, MobileCoin confirmed the death of Lee, 43, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency startup’s chief product officer.
Lee moved to Miami late last year, but was in town last week for the MobileCoin Leadership Summit and stayed a few extra nights to meet friends. Longtime friend Doug Dalton met Lee many years ago when they were both software engineers starting out in their careers.
“He brought people together. He brought technology together,” Dalton said. “He was an amazing dad who always did the best he could,” said Dalton, who got together with Lee and other friends the night before his death. “The area he returns leads directly to his hotel,” he said.
Surveillance cameras in the area captured video of Lee walking down the street after the stabbing, according to a security manager at a nearby building. Lee was seen holding his cell phone, crossing the street in Harrison and walking down the main road towards the Portside apartment complex, where it collapsed less than 20 feet from the front door. He later died in hospital.
“I think he still has a lot to offer and it’s a shock that this happened,” Dalton said. “Life is an adventure, two bachelors living together, I’m lucky we’ve grown so close over the past few years. Bob will give you his back shirt,” reads the post in part. “He would never look down on anyone and had a strict, non-judgmental philosophy. Bobby worked harder than anyone and was the smartest person I ever knew. He will be missed by all who knew him.”
“Bob is a force of nature,” MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard said in a statement to KPIX. “He helped bring Android and CashApp to our world. Moby was his dream: a 21st century privacy wallet. I will miss him every day.”
