Bob was a good friend, tried to hire me numerous tries at Square, and was my next door neighbor for 3 years. I knew him well and spent a lot of time with him. He will be dearly missed. I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit. That being said, I left San Francisco in 2018 because I was worried I would eventually become the random murder that would finally…
> I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit do you realize how specifically you have to know the right person for an individual in the intel community to even remotely come close to knowing anything similar to this? not only are there over 100,000 that technically "work" in the intel community. 95% of those are not even in operations. even 5% of those in th…
Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
911–920 of 1001 posts
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#912Everyone commenting on here about how bad things are in SF has likely rarely or never stepped into the core parts of Protrero Hill, Noe Valley, Richmond, Sunset, Glenn Park, Forest Hill etc. SF is a tale of two cities divided by natural barriers. There is a side to the city where you see almost no drugs, or homelessness. This is not a dismissal of the real issues facing the city but an acknowledgement that it is stil…
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Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#913I'm so sick of crime in the Bay. We need to be way tougher on crime. Immediate life sentences without parole for murder, ending catch+release for property theft. The mere thought of stealing, or attacking a stranger, or dealing drugs illegally, must become so unappetizing that they simply refuse to do it even when they have no other options.
Yeah. Makes total sense. That's why the wild west was crime free, because everyone feared the retributive punishments... People don't pull out a knife then think "wait, but I'll be punished" and put the knife away. What you are proposing feels good but in no way lines up with the reality of society in a contemporary city. If you want there to be less crime you have to treat it as the social class problem it is and fi…
>> We need to be way tougher on crime. Immediate life sentences without parole for murder, ending catch+release for property theft.
> If you want there to be less crime you have to treat it as the social class problem it is and find ways to get people access to other ways of living, or if they're ill (mentally or otherwise) get them care and shelter.
IMHO, you probably have to do both. There do exist people who are just antisocial, who don't have the self-control to stop themselves from committing crimes or who lack the moral framework to avoid crime if it would otherwise satisfy a goal. And even with crime was driven by "social class problems," even if you solve all those there's still the problem of transitioning from one regime to the other, and dealing with people who's habits and mindset from the old regime keep them committing crimes in the new one.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#914[flagged]
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#915I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot ab…
Thank you for sharing your personal perspective. As a fellow immigrant, have nothing to say except that I totally agree. Many of us come from countries with less than great rule of law, and the entire reason me and my parents came here is for a better life where laws are fairly and equally enforced. That means that if you work hard - you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
As an immigrant I also agree with this. I think it is mainly immigrants that appreciate how much better things are in the US. Sure they aren’t perfect but law enforcement had m worked extremely well here compared to many of the countries we’ve come From. And in chasing some form of utopian perfection we have thrown off the balance of something that worked quite well in favor of declining standards and opened the door to more crime, which affects the same people we were trying to protect in the first place.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#916I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot ab…
San Francisco has been ceding its monopoly of violence for years if not decades. Trends suggest otherwise: https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ The big peak in violent crime in the 1990s is the crack epidemic. I personally saw driveby shooting attacks and personal murders in broad daylight; 24th street (and the Mission in general) used to be considered a no-go area by folk in better-off neighb…
I'd be careful with any crime stats other than like, murder stats. The problem is that people are less likely to report crimes if they don't think they're going to be prosecuted. There's many anecdotes of people asking for police help and they just tell them not to bother.
> In April [2022], [...] the dept issued 338 tickets for traffic violations. By comparison, in April 2014, the year Vision Zero began, the department issued 11,612 tickets.
Does that mean nobody violates traffic laws in SF anymore? Of course not. But if the tickets aren't issued they're not rolled up into stats. Same with all sorts of violent and property crime.
When I lived in the mid-mission a few years ago I had to call in a shooting that happened outside my bedroom window. There were a ton of violent altercations between pimps and prostitutes that were just straight-up ignored. And 24th St became an open-air Walgreens.
> The letter highlighted alarming data backing up many residents’ concerns that police have thrown up their hands. For example, last year the Department of Police Accountability opened 595 cases into alleged police wrongdoing; the largest share by far, 42.6%, related to “neglect of duty.” That percentage has ticked up steadily since 2016, when neglect of duty made up 32% of complaints. [1]
[edit] Your own source seems to back that up. Your source is for all of California, not SF. And one of the big sub-headings is "crime rates vary dramatically by region and category" and specifically calls out SF as having an outsized quantity of property crime.
> The state’s highest rate of violent crime was in the San Joaquin Valley, which had 640 violent incidents per 100,000 residents. The highest rate of property crime was in the San Francisco Bay Area, at 2,718 per 100,000 residents.
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article...
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#917Very sad to see something like this happen. But. Cash App founder, a rich 42 year old father of 2, found dead at 2:35 AM, one week after an explosive report accusing his startup of being extensively used for crime and fraud[0]. This is odd. [0] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-03-...
Whistleblower with 9 year old information? He left Square in 2014...
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#918Would anybody be willing to entertain the idea that he was a whistleblower to the Hindenburg short seller report against Square/Block that indicts CashApp, or that there is any link? Something aside from “random degeneracy and vagrancy in SF with no leads”?
He left Square in 2014... 9 years is some pretty stale information. This makes no sense.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#919Hedge fund Citadel decided to leave Chicago due to employee safety issues. Wonder if this will prompt similar responses in SF. https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/ken-griffins-citadel-left-chic...
That was the company line. Ken Griffin aiming for a cabinet post with DeSantis so that he can divest without paying capital gains taxes is also a likely factor. https://youtu.be/kiMTRQXBol0?t=4754
The company line was that multiple employees has been mugged on their way to work.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#920lol. dude provides "data" for the first part of this year and one year previous. Notes there's an increase and blames the city for Lee's murder. If you go back several years, you'll see that the recent past is about the same (around 6 murders per 100,000). Turns out that 2022 had a lower than average # of murders in the first three months of 2022. In 2007, the murder rate was twice what it was in the last several yea…
Please don't post snarky flamebait or ideological battle comments to HN. We've had enough wretched flamewar about this already. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Your assertion is that pointing out someone cherry picked data is an ideological battle. Hmm.