San Francisco

Bob Lee left a massive, global tech footprint

Cash App founder who helped develop Google Android was stabbed to death in April 2023

NBC Universal, Inc.

Prior to his death, Bob Lee was serving as chief product officer of MobileCoin and had other significant contributions to the Silicon Valley tech community.

Lee, who was stabbed to death in San Francisco in April 2023, got his breakthrough start in tech by working on Google's Android system, which today is used my millions of people across the globe.

After six years with Google, Lee went to work for Square, a San Francisco-based company started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2009. Lee was at Square in its early stages and eventually became its chief technology officer.

While still at Square, Lee was part of a team that built Cash App, a popular digital payment wallet in which people can exchange payments or other monetary transactions.

As he expanded his tech entreprenuerial resume, Lee soon became an investor, putting money into companies such as SpaceX, Clubhouse and others.

Finally, in 2021, Lee joined cryptocurrency company MobileCoin. CEO Josh Goldbard said Lee "was made for the new world."

“From large contributions to Android at Google, to being the first CTO of Square, in that time creating Cash App, and working with us here at Mobilecoin, Bob surely had an impact that will last far beyond his short time on Earth,” Goldbard said.

Venture capitalist Wesley Chan said he befriended Lee more than a decade ago when they both worked at Google.

"He was an incredibly iconic founder in the tech world,” Chan said. "His resume reads something like a Fortune cover article. … With everything that Bob worked on, it was always a pleasant surprise. That’s one of the things I loved about him. 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.'"

Lee's killer, Nima Momeni, was convicted of second-degree murder on Tuesday. Momeni, who calls himself a tech consultant, faces 16 years to life in prison.

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