I think prices today are to some extend inflated by government action. But it is hard to tell by how much, since also the global economy will grow again very soon. And if anyone benefits from more digitization and remote work it is MSFT.
Also for MSFT specifically, I think the company is in a very good spot right now with its cloud business, gaming and office, developer and productivity software
My feeling is that best Indian software engineers are in the US (or even Europe) already. I have great Indian and Pakistani colleagues at my company, but we had very mixed results with outsourcing.
I am in Germany (where software engineers are ridiculously undervalued) and would consider 80k an underwhelming mid-level salary. According to levels.fyi, salary in the netherlands is quite a bit better.
I only read Pandora's Star so far, but I really liked the fact that it was a rather optimistic vision of the future. Humanity had colonies on dozens or hundreds of planets, and due to life extension people were basically immortal and could even choose the shape of their body.
It's cool technology, but I guess ebooks might have been even more effective.
Side note, for once I am happy to be in Germany and not the US. Here Libraries are open. I go to the gym. Next week I even have a movie date at the local cinema.
It will go away. I'm in Europe where things are closer to normal already. I meet friends, people go shopping (with hygiene measures and masks), schools and gyms are opening.
Also keep in mind that there was always a threat of infectious diseases. And it will persist until we find a universal cure for all viruses. Being somewhat of a germophobe myself, I was always aware of it.
Hopefully, people will stay at home when they are sick, though.
The fatality rate is below one percent. It's quite a bit higher for the old and sick, much lower for healthy people. The only rational and sustainable solution is to isolate the vulnerable and let the other people live their lives with the appropriate hygiene and safety measures as well as extensive testing.
By what metric will it turn out to be a mistake? I think there are better alternative to the course taken, but a universal, indefinite lockdown is neither appropriate nor feasible. What would you prefer - and again by what standard and which metrics?
Takeaway: death rate is lower than many initially feared. But it is not like we have already 15 % immunity. In reality it is probably around ~1-2% based on the number of deaths.
However, the "controversy" has been overstated by the German media as well. Drosten, virologist who has been cited as one of the critics, called the Gangelt/Heinsberg study "very solid and robust" just yesterday: https://www.zdf.de/politik/maybrit-illner/christian-drosten-...
Particulary, the death rate will be close to the estimate.