Bob Lee, the previous chief know-how officer of Sq. who helped launch Money App, has died after an obvious stabbing assault in San Francisco.
Lee’s dying was confirmed by Josh Goldbard, the CEO of his present employer, MobileCoin. Lee joined MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency and digital funds startup, in 2021 as its chief product officer.
“Our pricey pal and colleague, Bob Lee handed away yesterday on the age of 43, survived by a loving household and assortment of shut pals and collaborators,” Goldbard mentioned in a press release to CNN Wednesday morning. “Bob was a dynamo, a drive of nature. Bob was the real article. He was made for the world that's being born proper now, he was a baby of goals, and no matter he imagined, irrespective of how loopy, he made actual.”
Goldbard continued: “We'll miss you Bob. We love you.”
Rick Lee, Bob’s father, additionally confirmed the information in a press release on Fb, writing, “I simply misplaced my finest pal.” The daddy mentioned that his son “misplaced his life on the road in San Francisco early Tuesday.”
“Bob would provide the shirt off his again,” the daddy wrote. “He would by no means look down on anybody and adhered to a strict no-judgment philosophy.”
Rick Lee added that his son “will probably be missed by all people who knew him” and thanked those that have reached out and provided assist.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed additionally reacted to the information in a press release Wednesday, calling Lee’s dying “a horrible tragedy.” Breed mentioned the police are nonetheless investigating Lee’s dying and can be sharing extra particulars quickly.
In accordance with an earlier assertion from the San Francisco Police Division, officers responded to the report of a stabbing early Tuesday morning within the Rincon space of San Francisco, the place they discovered “a 43-year-old grownup male sufferer affected by obvious stab wounds.”
“Officers rendered support and summoned medics to the scene. The sufferer was transported to an area hospital with life-threatening accidents. Regardless of efforts by first responders and medical personnel, the sufferer succumbed to his accidents,” the police assertion mentioned.
A number of native information organizations cited unnamed police sources saying Lee was the sufferer of the stabbing. Police indicated no arrests have been made and that the investigation stays lively.
San Francisco has been grappling with an obvious uptick in crime because it nonetheless makes an attempt to bounce again from the pandemic. Preliminary police information studies 12 homicides in San Francisco this 12 months, an uptick of 20% in comparison with the identical time interval within the earlier 12 months. In whole, there have been 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, which is the very same variety of homicides the town noticed in 2021.
Whereas Goldbard didn't present the circumstances of Lee’s dying in his assertion, he wrote in a separate Twitter thread reacting to the information that, “As a lifelong Bay Space resident I've extra questions than solutions tonight.”
“I don’t know the best way to repair what’s improper, however I do know one thing isn’t working in our gray metropolis. Bob left this world too quickly,” Goldbard wrote on Twitter.
Outpouring of grief
Many others within the tech world and past responded to information of Lee’s dying with an outpouring of shock and grief.
“It’s so arduous to consider he's gone,” Figma CEO Dylan Area wrote in a tweet, recalling how he first met Lee again in 2006.
Tech investor Ryan Gilbert of Launchpad Capital tweeted that Lee “was one in every of a form,” including, “Might his reminiscence be a blessing.”
And Blended Martial Arts fighter Jake Shields remembered Lee as a “loyal pal” in a tweet, writing, “RIP brother.”
Shields’ tweet garnered the eye of Twitter’s new proprietor Elon Musk, who chimed in to say that, “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even when attackers are caught, they're usually launched instantly.” Musk tagged San Francisco District Lawyer Brooke Jenkins in his tweet.
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Sq. (which is now known as Block), responded to the information by way of a submit early Wednesday on the decentralized social media app Nostr. “Heartbreaking,” Dorsey wrote. “Bob was instrumental to Sq. and Money App.”
Lee was Sq.’s first-ever chief know-how officer. Previous to becoming a member of Sq., Lee was at Google, the place he helped lead the crew that launched Android.
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