A tech guru dubbed ‘Crazy Bob‘ who helped found mobile payment services Android and Cash App has been stabbed to death in San Francisco.
Bob Lee, 43, whose latest position was at cryptocurrency company MobileCoin, was found attacked in the early hours of Tuesday in the exclusive residential area of Rincon Hill and was rushed to hospital but died of his injuries.
Tributes have poured in for Mr Lee whose roles in tech innovation saw him hold positions including at mobile payment app Square and Google.
Police were called to 300 block of Main Street in San Francisco around 2.35am on Tuesday and found the dad-of-two suffering from stab wounds.
A friend who had reportedly planned to meet up with Mr Lee this coming weekend said that he was in San Francisco on business and had stayed on for an extra day when he was killed.
‘I’m still in shock. No way he did anything to provoke this and I feel like he would just hand his money and watch to a mugger,’ they told The San Francisco Standard.
In a statement, San Francisco police said: ‘On April 4, 2023, at approximately 2:35 am, San Francisco Police officers from Southern Station responded to the 300 block of Main Street for a report of a stabbing.’
Officers arrived on scene and located a 43-year-old adult male victim suffering from apparent stab wounds. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene.
The victim was transported to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Despite efforts by first responders and medical personnel, the victim succumbed to his injuries.
Lee, popularly known as as Crazy Bob, spent five years as a Google engineer before being hired by Square to develop its Android app.
He led the development of the Cash App, which was first known as Square Cash, and helped integrate it with the Android operating system.
Then in 2021 he became chief product officer of MobileCoin, a peer-to-peer payment processing system that made it faster and more secure to trade cryptocurrency from a mobile phone.
