Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says a tech world 'rising star' convinced him to pay $750 million for a small startup (CRM)

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Salesforce just spent $750 million to buy the work-collaboration app Quip.

Although Quip is an interesting product, Monday's acquisition was somewhat of a surprise, given that Salesforce already has a note-taking feature and most of its recent acquisitions have been around machine-learning startups.

So Business Insider spoke to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to find out what exactly prompted him to spend so much money on Quip, a startup with only 45 employees.

His answer: Quip CEO Bret Taylor.

"He's one of the absolute rising stars of our industry," Benioff told Business Insider. "It's been my dream to work more closely with Bret Taylor."

Benioff says that his relationship with Taylor traces back five years to when he started hosting a private monthly dinner at his home, including other guests like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. Through years of conversation, Benioff says that he's has been impressed by Taylor's depth of knowledge and vision for the cloud-software space in general.

Taylor certainly has the track record to back it up. He's responsible for co-creating Google Maps and Facebook's "like" button while serving as Facebook's CTO at one point. He's also recently been tapped to serve on Twitter's board, making him one of the rising stars in Silicon Valley's tech scene.

Grooming the next generation

David Paul Morris/BloombergBenioff says that Taylor will directly report to him, immediately making him one of his closest lieutenants at Salesforce.

That's a big stamp of approval, given that most startup CEOs don't typically join the inner circles of the executive team right after they get bought.

Benioff compared Taylor's upside potential to Alex Dayon, Salesforce's president and chief product officer, who worked up the ladder after his startup, InStranet, got bought by Salesforce in 2008.

But the bigger plan may be in putting together a group of young talent to become the leaders of the next generation for Salesforce. Adam Evans and Steve Loughlin, the 30-something cofounders of RelateIQ, the startup that Salesforce bought for $390 million in 2014, continue to play a bigger role at the company, including more exposure at Salesforce's annual conference, Dreamforce.

Benioff wouldn't comment on whether Salesforce will continue its buying spree. This year alone, Salesforce has bought seven companies, including Demandware, which cost $2.8 billion. But he reiterated that any acquisition wouldn't just be about the product, but the talent that comes with it.

"We've purchased dozens of companies. And through that we've been able to bring a lot of innovative people into the company over the years. It's a very important part of running a successful technology company," he said.

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