On June 12, 2018, something unprecedented happened in Singapore—two leaders who had been exchanging heated rhetoric met face-to-face for the first time in their nations' history. The North Korea-United States summit wasn't just a diplomatic milestone; it was a masterclass in making the impossible possible.
As tech leaders, we often face our own "impossible" meetings. Maybe it's convincing a skeptical board to invest in that revolutionary AI project, or getting two rival teams to collaborate on a critical feature. The Singapore summit reminds us that sometimes the most transformative breakthroughs happen when we're willing to sit down with people who see the world completely differently than we do. Both leaders took enormous political risks just by showing up—much like when we choose to engage with difficult stakeholders or explore partnerships that others dismiss as "never going to work."
The real lesson isn't about the politics, but about the power of direct communication. In our industry, we've all seen projects derail because teams assumed they knew what the other side wanted instead of actually talking to them. Sometimes the most productive code review comes from the developer who challenges your approach most strongly. The 2018 Singapore summit didn't solve every problem overnight, but it opened a channel of communication that hadn't existed before. In tech, as in diplomacy, showing up to the table is often the hardest—and most important—step.