Foundering: Tech Executive’s Death Prompts San Francisco Doom Loop Panic

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1:55Tuesday, April, San Francisco. Let's see.

2:03It's April 4th, 2023. Where are you? The 911 call comes in at 2.34 in the morning from near downtown San Francisco. Hello? Where are you? The caller sounds stunned. He doesn't say his name. he just keeps repeating, help, help, until he says, I know you can hear me, sir. Where are you? Somebody stabbed me. Where are you? After a minute or so, the caller starts gasping for breath. I have help going to you, sir. Where are you? The 911 operator tries to get more information out of him, without much luck. Are you outside or inside? Listen to my questions. I know you can hear me. Where are you? I'm on the street.

2:53Please help. Okay, you're on the street? You're outside? I'm, uh, wait a second. I'm at, I need to go to the hospital. Slowly, he starts struggling for energy.

3:10Until three minutes in, he goes quiet. Zero, two, thirty, nine, and fifty, three seconds. The police arrive. Officer Drew Jackson is the first on the scene. Hey, hey, it's the police, man. Zero, two, three. Hey, it's the police. Yeah, the police is there for you. Can you see them? This recording is from his body camera. We're here in front of a 403 main. Hey, it's the police. Hey, who did this to you? The video, I should say, is awful. You can see Officer Jackson come upon this body collapsed on the sidewalk. It's a man. He looks completely helpless. He's gone pale and is struggling to breathe.

3:55Hey, my friend. Officer Jackson pulls up the victim's shirt to reveal stab wounds and blood on his chest. He starts cutting off the victim's clothes. Hey, get the med kit, please. I know, but he's not doing too hot.

4:14A few hours later, the man would be pronounced dead of multiple stab wounds to the chest and heart.

4:25The police don't know it yet, but the victim is Bob Lee, a successful tech executive and programmer who had a hand in creating many popular tech products. He worked at Google on the Android phone. He was CTO of Square, the payment company. And he founded Cash App, an incredibly popular tool for sending or receiving money via smartphone. He was respected and well-liked in the tech industry. His death would send shockwaves through the community.

5:03What happened following this moment was unlike anything I've ever seen in San Francisco. It took nine days for the police to arrest a suspect. In those nine days, very little was even said about the investigation. And so rumors, fear, and misinformation rushed in to fill the void. Online speculation turned Bob Lee's death into something else, into a narrative. A story about San Francisco and its decline. At first, there were some prominent figures in tech who thought that Bob's murder was the manifestation of all that was wrong with the city. a famously progressive place that had crumbled into lawlessness, crushed by its own liberal policies.

5:49To them, Bob Lee's death became a symbol of what came to be known as the San Francisco Doom Loop. Leaders in the tech industry started calling for change. They placed the blame for Bob's death at the feet of the city's politicians. San Francisco was among the first major cities where there were calls for a return to law and order while flaunting the actual crime statistics. But it would not be the last. The Trump administration is also increasing the pressure on Minnesota. Thousands of immigration agents were sent to the Twin Cities. The Trump administration is deploying an additional 2 ,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

6:31Amid his effort to deploy the National Guard to cities like Portland and Chicago. In the years since Bob Lee's death, President Trump would deploy federal troops to several cities with Democratic leadership. I don't like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful Capitol was. He would argue that crime was, quote, out of control and that these cities were burning down, that the streets were in crisis. And for anyone living in San Francisco, this kind of language might sound pretty familiar.

7:09The San Francisco doom loop was only the first chapter of how Bob Lee's death was spun. After that, when details of Bob Lee's personal life started being reported out in the press, a new story started to emerge. Bob was held up as an example of the tech industry's excessive party scene, replete with sex, drugs, and house music. What was the real story? Why was Bob Lee killed? And who really was to blame? The city? The industry? Or something else entirely?

7:48I'm Sean Nguyen. This is Foundering, The Killing of Bob Lee.

8:08I should look up what our last text message was. Hold on, let me... Please, go ahead. I first met Bob Lee's former wife, Krista Lee, at her family home in Marin County. She moved there after she and Bob separated, while he stayed in a penthouse apartment in San Francisco. She still lives there with their kids and her partner. Okay, so this was on April 3rd at 8, 8.06 p.m. How are you feeling? Hanging with Beau in the city. And I messaged back, Hey, sexy boys, I'm in bed. Not suitable for public eye. I feel like crap. Like, just leave me alone. Oh, feel better, babe. We'll hit you up tomorrow. And that was the last message that I heard from him.

8:46Krista and Bob met when they were both 22 years old. They became adults together and raised kids. They divorced in 2018 after a 16-year relationship. But they stayed close. Not just we have kids close, but we still party together close. They had a shared family group text and were in constant touch. He'll send a message on our family thread, you know, love you guys, see you soon. He was always in communication with our family. It was the morning of April 4th. Bob had moved to Miami a few months before all of this, but he was back in town for a work trip and to see his daughter's school play. Krista had seen him the night before, but hadn't heard from him all morning.

9:26She was in the car with her daughter. I was driving and I said, do me a favor and check Dad's location for me. Something's not right. Bob's phone showed that he was at the police station. After Krista dropped her daughter off at school, she texted him. April 4th, 9.49 a.m. Are you in jail? Question mark, question mark, question mark. I got multiple calls at 6 a.m. from Zuckerberg General Hospital. No message. And when I called back, they said it was probably just auto update confirmation for an appointment. But I don't have appointments there. Then I had Scout double-check your location. It shows you at the police station.

10:01She didn't hear back. A few hours passed. We were out back having lunch, and I tried to call him again. It was going right to voicemail. I'm like, this isn't right. I've got a weird feeling. Shortly after that, that's when our friend Ali called me and said, Babes, have you talked to Bob this morning? Ali is a close friend of Bob's. He goes, I don't want to alarm you, but it shows his location at the police station. And of course, then I kind of giggled to myself, like, how many people have your location, honey? Ali was like, you know, I'm in the area. I'm going to go see what's going on. Like, did he get beat up?

10:37Did something happen? The, I guess, receptionist at the police station said, you know, the person matching this description was taken to the hospital.

10:51my heart dropped and i mean we left the house within two seconds of that and and went down there and and ali said i'm on my way there right now and of course the entire drive we're thinking okay what happened what damn it bob what did you do or even worse you know did he get attacked by someone um you know what what's going on here nothing made sense krista arrived at zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with her partner, Jeremy. I walked up, I gave them my ID, and the woman said, oh, okay, let's take you back to this private waiting room. I'm thinking, what the fuck is going on here? And then maybe about five minutes passed, and it's just kind of a, we're kind of making little jokes here and there, like, what is going on with Bob?

11:38Shortly after that, a nurse and the attending doctor came into the waiting room and said, you're the wife of Bob Lee. I said, former wife, Krista Lee. And he's like, I'm so sorry to inform you, but we did everything we could, but we couldn't save Bob.

12:00I almost passed out. This flush went over me. And it was like, I couldn't even hear what he was saying anymore. It was just all of a sudden, you know, ears are deaf. And I'm listening to this person try to tell me, you know, and they don't even say his name. and they keep saying a man matching his description. And I was like, what the fuck? What is going on here? And I'm looking at Jeremy, and I couldn't even make a tear. I couldn't catch my breath. And they wanted me to stick around. They wanted me to talk to the medical examiner and all this other stuff, and it's like, the only thing I could think of was, I have to go home.

12:31My kids just got out of school. They're at the house. I have to go home now. I have to tell my children that their father was stabbed to death.

12:47Krista made the hour-long drive back to her house. She pulled in the driveway. I just kind of sat in the car looking out the window and hoping that I was going to get a call saying, oops, wrong guy, never mind, it was some other blonde dude. When that call didn't come, she went inside to see her kids. So I walked upstairs to their rooms and said, I need to tell you that something happened to Dad last night. And he was taken to the hospital, and Dad passed away early this morning. Like, I didn't really know how to express to my children, like, what words that you're supposed to use. And I just remember looking at Scout, who's our 15-year-old.

13:28She's got the big Disney princess eyes where they just welled up in tears. So I'm laying there with my children and not really making sense of it all, but just feeling pain, absolute pain.

13:47Within minutes, I received calls from dozens of people. Is it real? I'm like, as far as I know, I think so, yeah. And then shortly after that, one of our best friends called and said, I just saw on the news. And at that point in time, my heart shattered. I'm like, how the fuck is this already on the news? Thank you, Raina. 701 in the breaking news, a tech executive is dead. He was stabbed in San Francisco, south of Market Street. Yeah, the latest reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. Someone out there has already run to the media saying, you know, Cash App founder Bob Lee stabbed to death.

14:26He's widely known as the founder of Cash App, a popular mobile payment service. He is a giant in the tech field. His death certainly sending shockwaves through the tech community here. I was on the phone with my father and I started crying. I'm like, Dad, I gotta go. Bob's on the news. Police officers rushed out there, but by the time they got there, the killer or killers were long gone. The initial wave of news stories are pretty bare bones. They mention Bob's name and the fact that he was killed, but they don't mention a suspect or a weapon. Then the story changes. At 8.01 p.m. the night of April 4th, only 18 hours after Bob was stabbed, a retired MMA fighter named Jake Shields goes on Twitter and posts, quote, I just found out that my good friend was killed last night while walking in San Francisco.

15:21He was in the good part of town and appears to have been targeted in a random mugging slash attack. Fuck San Francisco. Nowadays, Jake is a podcast host. He's interviewed Holocaust deniers and white nationalists. But at the time, he was simply a semi-famous guy on Twitter. Soon, more voices join in, many identifying as venture capitalists and tech founders. We've trimmed these tweets for length. RIP at Crazy Bob. This is fucking horrific. Fuck you, SF politicians. Fuck you. Can we please stand up and completely purge SF politics now and start over? How many more of these are we going to see? Another one reads, Chesa Boudin and the criminal-loving city council that enabled him and a lawless SF for years have Bob's literal blood on their hands.

16:14This last tweet was referencing Chesa Boudin, a progressive DA who ran on policies like bail reform and reducing the prison population. He was removed from office after a very contentious recall vote. By the time Bob was killed, members of the tech industry had been rallying for months around the message that crime in San Francisco was out of control. And now, one of their own was dead. That's when the richest man in the world chimes in, taking this story to a whole new level of infamy. At 2.27 a.m., Elon Musk tweets, Very sorry to hear that. Many people I know have been severely assaulted. Violent crime in San Francisco is horrific.

17:00And even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat offenders? At Brooke Jenkins SF. So I woke up, I remember early in the morning to that tweet already being in my inbox. That's Brooke Jenkins, the current DA of San Francisco. She was appointed after Chesa Boudin was recalled. And me having to, you know, out of the fog of waking up, realize what exactly I was looking at. And that it was, in fact, Elon Musk who had tagged me in this tweet about this case. Were you surprised he even knew who you were? Oh, absolutely. I was shocked that he knew my name at all.

17:49I think about 6 million people saw it within 24 hours. And so the flood of media interest began almost right away. All right. Here's a horrible story, then we'll talk about Trump. The next morning, things move beyond the walls of Twitter when conservative YouTubers take up the story. Tech executive Bob Lee, founder of Cash App, was stabbed to death in San Francisco on the 300 block of Main Street. This is the late Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Now, this caught my attention not only because it was a horrible tragedy, but this is the same block that I was attacked with a knife. Two months before this, Dilbert was dropped by major newspapers all over the country when Adams made racist statements about Black people.

18:40He became a YouTuber, commenting on the news of the day. So in the 80s, I was robbed twice at gunpoint while I was a bank teller in downtown San Francisco. He then goes on to suggest that cities are done for. I tend to think the cities are dead. I think they're dead. I think the next time the cities will be alive is when robots rebuild them. That could be a while. All right, let's talk about Trump's arraignment. Clearly what's happening in San Francisco is political. This is Luke Rudkowski, a prominent 9-11 truther and an Alex Jones acolyte. The latest high-profile incident that happened in San Francisco happened where a major tech executive and the founder of Cash App, Bob Lee, was viciously attacked in the middle of the night and then lost his life at the age of 43.

19:29News of Lee's death caught the attention of many commentators, from those on the fringe to those who are increasingly mainstream. I'm Dave Rubin. This is The Rubin Report. It's April 6, 2023. We're live streaming on Rumble, YouTube, and Locals. Dave Rubin is a conservative YouTuber. His channel has almost 3 million subscribers. And it's not just that they're pushing all of the gender stuff and the race stuff and that they lied about COVID and everything else. It's that there is also an unbelievable amount of crime happening in blue cities right now. You know it. We cover it all the time. But the worst of the worst, as you guys know, is San Francisco.

20:06San Francisco has completely collapsed. Elon Musk's comments are completely right. The amount of security he has to have at the Twitter offices, which is in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. And then Rubin goes on to connect this to the city's political leaders. Why is it that Democrat cities look like that? If you can find Republican-led cities that look like that, please send me the video and I will show it. And I will go after the Republican mayor in those cities that's doing it. It's worth pausing here to ask, where does San Francisco's reputation as a crime-ridden hellhole come from? The data show that all reported crime in San Francisco is at a 20-year low.

20:49During those early years of the pandemic, crime was also trending down overall, according to SFPD data. The exceptions that stand out include car thefts, burglaries, and homicides. all of which increased a little. But the homicide rate is still among the lowest of major cities in the U.S. In 2023, the year Bob Lee was killed, he was one of only 55 homicides. But San Francisco suffers from a persistent gap between what the data show and how people feel. This has prompted questions about how crime data is gathered. and some prominent tech voices have suggested throwing out the stats altogether. This topic is kind of a minefield, and many people who are much more knowledgeable than I am have made a go at it.

21:43But what I want to get at is a feeling, a disconnect between the data and people's experiences.

21:53I remember not long after I moved here, about a decade ago, I was crossing the street, and I saw a man lying face down right where the crosswalk met the sidewalk. So to reach the sidewalk, you had to step over his body. And that's what everyone at this intersection did, including me. We walked right past him, not knowing if he was alive or dead. While this kind of human suffering is not unique to San Francisco, there's something about it here that just feels different. It's more casual, more in your face. In your daily life, on your way to work, on your way to dinner, on a walk to pick up groceries, you might see someone shooting up at the BART station, or sitting on the sidewalk with open sores on their legs, or having a mental health episode in the middle of traffic.

22:44And most longtime San Franciscans would tell you, unfortunately, that's not new.

22:54There's research that shows that worrying about crime can become a chronic emotional state that shapes how people see the world around them. It can sow anxiety and mistrust, even when crime rates are stable or falling. The research also shows that people who worry more about crime also tend to see common nuisances as threatening. Things like noisy neighbors, litter, graffiti, or just visible groups of teenagers hanging out. To them, these are signs of social decline. Crime during and immediately after COVID was a nationwide conversation. But San Francisco especially was a hot topic. Comedian Dave Chappelle was not the usual jokes and giggles during a surprise show last week.