In 2017, Merck launched “Can’t Wait For,” a video that begins unassumingly enough. An off-screen director conducts “person-on-the-street” interviews with a wide range of people found in techy, trendy Silicon Valley (Northern California, USA) and Silicon Alley (New York City, USA). He asks, “what invention can’t you wait for?” Most answers center on light-hearted ideas out of a science fiction novel like time travel, teleportation, shrink rays and flying cars. But the tone quickly and unexpectedly turns. Our last interviewee is a parent of a child with cancer whose only wish is for “a cure.” A title card then reads, “95% of people don’t think of new medicines as the most impactful inventions. We think they’re the most important kind.”