Who Was Cash App Founder Bob Lee? His Shocking Death and Story, Explained
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Editor’s note: San Francisco Police announced on April 13 they have arrested 38-year-old Nima Momeni in connection with Bob Lee’s death.
The shocking death of Cash App creator Bob Lee left friends and colleagues in sadness and disbelief that one of the tech industry’s great minds is now gone.
Shortly after 2:35 a.m. on Tuesday, April 4, San Francisco Police found Lee, 43, in front of a condominium building with multiple stab wounds near the Embarcadero waterfront in the city’s downtown. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, according to the Associated Press.
Lee is survived by wife Krista—although multiple reports suggest they were separated—and their two children, according to NBC News.
Lee was the chief product officer for MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency firm, at the time of his death. In addition to his work on Cash App, Lee’s contributions to a number of other important tech projects and organizations are now in the spotlight following his death.
Bob Lee’s Career and Accomplishments
Lee, who was born on December 20, 1979, graduated from Lindbergh High School in St. Louis and then attended St. Louis University, but dropped out, according to The Independent.
It was also during this time that Lee received his nickname “Crazy Bob” from his days playing water polo, according to a post from MobileCoin CEO Josh Goldbard. Lee made the moniker, which reflected his relentless ambition and energy, his Twitter handle.
But Lee, a brilliant coder, quickly earned a reputation as an adept hacker and open source code developer. He co-authored the 2003 book Bitter EJB, a guide for coders developing web-based business apps. By that time, Lee had been working as an open source developer in St. Louis for 10 years, according to The San Francisco Standard.
In 2004, Lee moved to San Francisco for a job at Google. While there, he helped set up the Android smartphone operating system that released in 2008.
In 2010, Lee was hired by Square—now known as Block—where he launched Cash App. He became Square’s chief technology officer in 2011. Lee made the first payment on Cash App in 2013, sending $4 to Twitter founder and Block chairman Jack Dorsey. The service is now used by tens of millions of people to make digital money transfers.
Lee left Square in 2014, according to The San Francisco Standard, and spent several years working with startups as an advisor. He became the CEO of a San Francisco-based group-chat app called Present in 2015.
Lee’s first involvement with MobileCoin, which Goldbard and Shane Glynn founded in 2017, was as an early-stage investor and advisor, according to PBS News Hour. From there, he became its chief product officer in 2021 and helped launch Moby in January 2023. Moby is a payment app that allows users to “send and receive money from anyone, anywhere in less than 5 seconds with the same privacy that you get from cash,” according to the MobileCoin web site.
Additionally, the World Health Organization told NBC News that Lee built a large portion of the server for its COVID-19 app.
Lee was also an active investor with stakes in companies like Figma, Clubhouse, and SpaceX. Current SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet he was “very sorry” to hear of Lee’s death.
Bob Lee’s Character and Legacy
Colleagues and peers who paid tribute to Lee praised not only his tech genius, but also his personal traits.
Tommy Sowers, a former Green Beret from Missouri, met Lee at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., during his 2010 campaign for the House of Representatives. He told the Associated Press that Lee had an “innate” kindness that contrasted the “tech-bro” stereotype.
FPV Ventures co-founder Wesley Chan befriended Lee while the two worked at Google, telling Fortune he frequently coached and encouraged other engineers while staying humble about his own accomplishments. “That’s one of the things I loved about him,” Chan said. “He was always humble about it, he’d say, ‘Oh, I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but we’ll try.’”
Goldbard praised Lee’s determination, saying he could turn anything he imagined into reality. “This may sound impressive, but Bob’s real resume is the hearts and minds he touched in his time here,” Goldbard wrote. “Bob’s legacy is the feeling that you can make a difference if you try.”
