Cash App founder Bob Lee called for help after San Francisco stabbing, 911 audio reveals

Dispatch audio from the 911 call Cash App founder Bob Lee made as he was dying of a stab wound in San Francisco has been released.

Lee, 43, was stabbed to death on the 300 block of Main Street in Rincon Hill shortly after 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. Surveillance footage captured of Lee after he was attacked showed him with a cellphone still in his hand. Audio confirms that Lee was able to call out for help, but by the time EMTs arrived, it was too late.

"There's a male screaming help, saying, 'Someone stabbed me,'" the 911 dispatcher says. "He is not giving a 20, this is a cellphone site location. Advised he's bleeding out. ... He is outside on the street."

"A 20" refers to the location of an emergency, meaning Lee could not give an exact address. Dispatchers were able to use his phone's approximate GPS location to find him. San Francisco police are not releasing Lee's end of the call, as it is part of the ongoing investigation.

Scant details are available in the killing that has shocked the tech world. Lee, who previously lived in Mill Valley and was visiting San Francisco from his new residence in Miami, was highly regarded among his colleagues. While at Square, Lee helped create Cash App; at the time of his death, he was the chief product officer for MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency startup. Friend Tommy Sowers told the Associated Press that Lee loved San Francisco and often liked staying out late.

"I'd want to go to bed at like 9. He talked me into going someplace till midnight, and then he'd be like, 'Well, there's another one,' and you'd go to that. And he's like, 'There's another one,'" Sowers said. "He just had real boundless energy."

Lee was killed in a normally quiet residential part of the city, marked mostly by luxury condos and office buildings. He was found in front of the Portside condo building and transported to a nearby hospital, where he died. Lee leaves behind his two children.

At a community meeting Thursday, San Francisco police Chief Bill Scott said there were "some good developments in this case" and that he was "confident" in investigators' progress so far. "We're investigating this as a murder, absolutely. There's evidence that we found that I can't talk about because we don't want to jeopardize this case," Scott said. Police have declined to say whether they believe the attack was targeted or random.

At the time of his death, there had been 12 homicides in San Francisco this year; there were 12 in the same period last year.