Lee, 43, worked at Google before serving as chief technology officer of Square, the company now known as Block, which developed the payment transfer app Cash App. He also invested in several tech companies including SpaceX, Clubhouse and Figma, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Several news reports, as well as posts by two of Lee’s family members, linked Lee’s death to a stabbing in the 300 block of Main Street in Rincon Hill, near downtown. Officers found a 43-year-old stabbing victim early Tuesday morning, according to San Francisco police. He was transported to a hospital but died of his injuries.
The department said it is still investigating the incident, which is being treated as a homicide. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins tweeted her condolences to Lee’s family.
“We do not tolerate these horrific acts of violence in San Francisco,” she wrote Wednesday afternoon, adding that no arrest had been made yet.
Lee’s father and brother posted on Facebook, linking to an article about his death.
“I just lost my best friend, my son Bob Lee when he lost his life on the street in San Francisco early Tuesday Morning,” his father, Rick Lee, posted. “Bobby worked harder than anyone and was the smartest person I have ever known. He will be missed by all those that knew him.”
Lee’s brother, Tim Oliver Lee, said he was “saddened and disheartened.”
“He really was the best of us,” he wrote on Facebook. “I was so fortunate to grow up with him, and I feel like I’ve lost part of myself.”
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Block, posted online Wednesday in response to an article about Lee’s death. “It’s real. Getting calls,” he wrote. “Heartbreaking. Bob was instrumental to Square and Cash App.”
Cash App has become one of the most popular mobile payment apps, enabling people to directly send each other money. Lee was a technologist who believed in “the right to privacy,” Goldbard tweeted.
Memorials poured in on social media, including from former UFC fighter Jake Shields and Abra Global CEO Bill Barhydt, who praised Lee as a “generous decent human.” Several posters decried violence in the city. Goldbard, noting that he is a lifelong resident of the Bay Area, said in a Twitter post that he has “more questions than answers tonight.”
“I don’t know how to fix what’s wrong, but I know something isn’t working,” he wrote of San Francisco.
Garry Tan, CEO of the prominent start-up accelerator Y Combinator, called Lee’s death a “huge loss for the tech community.”
“We know so little about the circumstances and it’s too early to speculate what happened yet,” Tan tweeted. “That area is filled with cameras so we will find out soon.”
According to crime data, there have been 12 homicides in San Francisco so far this year, not including Lee. That compares with 10 this time last year.
Lee went by “crazybob” on Twitter, a nickname he got from water polo, Goldbard wrote in his statement. Lee had connected with MobileCoin as an investor and adviser before joining the company as an executive.
“Here’s to the crazy ones,” Goldbard wrote. “We will miss you Bob. We love you.”
