What the Berlin Wall Can Teach Us Right Now

I’ve been thinking about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today, most people look back on that historic event and see it as inevitable. But before 1989, most experts out there said it was impossible: German reunification would never happen, the Cold War would never end, and the wall would never come down.

And those experts were right every single day. Until the day they weren’t.

Suddenly, the impossible became possible.

Over the past 35 years, I’ve often thought of the Berlin Wall when someone says that change will never come. And today, when so many of us who work on social progress see that work being challenged, it can feel like the barriers to equality and opportunity will never come down. But I firmly believe they can—and that with concerted action and sustained effort, they will.

As the president of Pivotal Ventures, I see firsthand how our partners are chipping away at those barriers every day—and hearing about their efforts always energizes me for the work ahead.

In the past few months alone, we’ve seen important progress in state and local governments, with a record number of women serving in state legislatures and as governors. What’s more, a number of states are advancing reforms to make legislatures better and safer workplaces, while Virginia just approved childcare stipends and remote voting for lawmakers—with Delegate Destiny LeVere Bolling becoming the first woman in the state to vote remotely after delivering her child last month.

We’ve seen progress in venture capital, where women are tapping into new opportunities and coming up with solutions to entrenched problems, such as leveraging AI to improve health care and industrial productivity.

We’ve seen progress in tech, where the number of women graduating with computing degrees has more than doubled since 2017.

And we’ve seen progress in caregiving, where our extraordinary partners have made it possible for more states to pass paid leave policies, are fighting for a national policy, and are creating products and services that can make caregivers’ lives easier.

At a time when there are so many challenges facing our country, we’ll be spotlighting more positive developments like these—as well as opportunities to accelerate change. While the headwinds we face are serious and can’t be ignored, recognizing the strides we’ve made reminds us of what’s possible and inspires us to keep going.

If you look back at any major historical turning point, whether it was women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, or the end of the Cold War, there was never just one thing that made it happen. Progress has always been the culmination of many people working together, over many years, even when the odds were stacked against them and it felt like things would never change.

That’s how the impossible becomes possible.