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Years ago, when I was a sophomore at Haverford College, I had a conversation with my father that changed the trajectory of my life.
At the time, I was not entirely sure what I wanted to do professionally. I had several ideas in mind, none of them particularly practical. One was to move back to Israel, where I had spent my high school years. Another was to become a rabbi, following in the footsteps of my grandfather. A third was to pursue philosophy academically. I had a fantastic philosophy professor at Haverford whose classes I absolutely loved, and there was something deeply appealing to me about a life spent thinking, writing, and teaching.
My father listened patiently and then proposed an alternative.
Why not try an internship at Merck?
At the time, Merck was just up the Northeast Extension in West Point, Pennsylvania. My father, Wayne Pines, had spent years at the FDA before moving into regulatory strategy and crisis communications. He had already become deeply embedded in the pharmaceutical industry and understood its significance in a way I did not yet fully appreciate.
He connected me with someone at Merck. A few weeks later, I was working there.
And almost immediately, something clicked.
The 1990s were an extraordinary period in pharma, and particularly at Merck. Under Dr. Roy Vagelos, Merck was viewed as among the most reputable companies in America. Indeed, according to Fortune Magazine, the Most Admired company. The organization had a palpable sense of mission. It was working on major innovations in cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, respiratory diseases, and perhaps most importantly at the time, HIV/AIDS.
My role then, to be clear, was not glamorous.
As an intern in public affairs, I spent much of my time clipping articles from newspapers and magazines, Xeroxing them, and organizing them into binders that circulated internally among marketing teams. This was before the internet became central to business life. Information moved physically. Articles mattered. The binders mattered.
I was, objectively speaking, very low on the organizational totem pole.
But even then, I could feel that I was inside an institution doing consequential work.
And what affected me most deeply was HIV/AIDS.
For younger professionals entering the workforce today, it may be difficult to fully appreciate the emotional and societal weight HIV/AIDS carried during that era. It was not simply another disease category. It was a global crisis, one that shaped culture, medicine, fear, politics, and public health all at once.
Merck was actively pursuing treatments, including protease inhibitors, and was involved in groundbreaking collaborations such as DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals’ work in NNRTIs. There was a sense that science was engaged in a genuine race against suffering and mortality.
For me, that pretty much changed everything.
I still remember realizing, sometime during those early months at Merck, that I wanted to spend my career in this industry. Not because of business alone. Not because of prestige or compensation. But because I felt the industry was fighting big fights -- fights that mattered.
That sense of purpose stayed with me.
Fast forward to May 2026.
This coming weekend, I’ll be attending my daughter’s graduation from Ithaca College. She studied health sciences and spent part of her junior year in India focused on public health work -- an experience that clearly left a deep impression on her. Since returning, she has spoken frequently about health equity, healthcare access, women's health, and population health in ways that remind me very much of how I thought about HIV/AIDS and pharma during my own college years.
And now, somewhat unexpectedly, I find myself occupying the role my father once occupied with me.
I’m trying, not forcefully, but gently, to help her see the pharmaceutical industry through the same lens that drew me in decades ago.
Because despite all of the criticism our industry sometimes receives, I continue to believe there is enormous purpose in this work. At its best, this industry mobilizes science, medicine, analytics, commercial strategy, empathy, and human ingenuity in service of patients facing devastating diseases.
There are not many industries where your daily work can contribute, even indirectly, to extending or improving human life.
That matters, and frankly makes this job still feel like a mission.
One thing I increasingly wonder about is how we help younger generations find that same sense of mission and direction.
Today’s graduates are entering a very different world than the one I entered in the 1990s. They are coming of age amid AI disruption, social media distraction, political polarization, economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, and a culture that often encourages skepticism toward large institutions.
And yet, I think the desire for meaningful work remains very much intact.
What may be different is that younger professionals want a stronger emotional connection to why they are doing something. They are not simply looking for employment. They are looking for alignment with values, contribution, and identity.
In many respects, I think that is healthy.
But I also think our industry sometimes undersells itself in this regard.
Because if you strip away the corporate language and organizational complexity, what we are fundamentally doing is trying to solve deeply human problems: cancer, neurological disease, rare genetic disorders, infectious diseases, mental illness.
Those are worthy fights that are far from won.
Looking back, it is remarkable to me how one relatively simple conversation with my father altered the course of my life.
At the time, I did not fully understand what he was steering me toward. I simply followed the opportunity with a college-infused, wide-eyed sense of idealism. But once I arrived, I found something I had not expected from day one: purpose.
And perhaps that is what many young people are really searching for today: not certainty, but purpose.
A reason to care deeply about the work. A sense that what they are doing matters beyond themselves.
As parents, mentors, managers, and leaders, I think part of our responsibility is to help illuminate pathways toward that sense of meaning, whether in pharma or elsewhere.
I’d be very interested to hear how others are thinking about this with their own children, students, or younger colleagues as they begin launching their careers.
Because the next generation is not just inheriting jobs. They are inheriting the responsibility to tackle the next set of big fights.
