Minestrone is an all-time great soup. The hearty Italian vegetable soup has variety and versatility: onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, beans, and whatever the family recipe tells you to put in it. I use minestrone as my metaphor at tech startups.

When a tech company goes from a startup finding product market fit to scaling to the next phase, an influx of new talent comes on board; many alumni from tech companies we admire who found success. I call this the minestrone of talent, where individuals with great experience all come together like the various ingredients of the Italian soup. Like minestrone, they are all thrown in together and mixed in a cooking pot in hopes to deliver something wonderful.

I’m going to make a case why joining a startup with a minestrone of talent is forming and cooking with that group is one of the best ways to gain experience.

There are different types of people who join startups that are scaling. There are three that are common, though they don’t encompass everything. The first are those who’ve experienced scale before. This may be the Ex-Airbnb, Dropbox, Meta, or alumni who’ve seen the growth to IPO phase. The second are tech founders who join via an acquisition. This may be the tech startup making a strategic move to get intellectual property (IP) or talented individuals who may be struggling to sustain the startup. In both instances, it’s a way to build a stronghold in the space the company works in. Third, there are also people who join from smaller companies as well. It’s a reminder that not all high performers and impactful people have to come from iconic logo companies in Silicon Valley.

If you can't travel the entire world, visit New York. The reason is because if you don’t have the time or means to travel the world, New York is a surefire way to meet people from all over the world. Through that experience, you learn a lot about the cultures and values of where they are from. The minestrone of talent at tech companies is exactly like this. I never worked worked at Slack, Dropbox, or Airbnb. However, from working with alum from those companies who joined during the minestrone of talent, I learned immensely from their experiences from frameworks, philosophy, and stories from it.

It’s nearly impossible for someone to work at all these companies in their career, so being immersed in it from others who worked there is effective. By increasing all the different ingredients of execution, you can take the best of them to adapt how you want to operate.

In addition to tactical learnings, what I’ve valued most from the minestrone of talent is hearing the stories. I even know about “Dropbox for toasters,” a story any time I mention to an early employee they chuckle as they understand the reference. The best stories are the ones that share the resilience of what it took for that scale phase to be successful. Let’s face it, working at startups are hard, and not for most people. We often imagine these iconic companies had it all figured out. They didn’t, and navigated through the chaos. The stories of resilience can motivate teams to keep going.

I recall going through a difficult time at a previous company. We had multiple departures at once on our team. Our Head of Tech Recruiting at the time told me the story of how Airbnb had their own Phoenix rising from the ashes moment and had to re-build the team. Hearing that story and knowing other companies had to go through those hardships was exactly what needed for our team to rebuild.

If you have an opportunity to join a tech company where a minestrone of talent is forming, take it. If you’re optimizing for learning, experiencing a lot of things at a rapid pace, and be immersed in a network of incredible individuals, the minestrone of talent can change your life and be the most delicious experience in your career.

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