Super Micro: Fresh Evidence of Accounting Manipulation, etc.

So, yeah, I absolutely love some parts of Supermicro (one word, no InitCaps...), especially the AM5 bits that power most of my servers, but...

Going public in the US was absolutely not the correct choice for them. Other than, quite obviously, not being able to keep up with the accounting requirements (which are, like, 80% of the job for any public company, the other 20% being split 80/20 between 'keeping shareholders happy' and 'doing the right thing'), they just lost sight of their core market, which used to be "cutting edge reference design boards for people who know what they're doing."

Instead, we got "packaged solutions" that included overpriced RAM and SSDs/HDDs. Well, sure, if I'd wanted that, I'd rather go to Dell/EMC! Because they at least have the delivery capabilities, which Supermicro has also been under-performing on for the past years.

So, yeah...

I can find red flags in any company's accounting. Some of them like GE are so completely fucked over and obscured you are better off avoiding their statements. When you change how you measure something all previous stats are invalidated as a comparison going forward.

Sort of like when a 3rd person shooter has its RNG tweaked. Too much trouble to revise all historic numbers, probably impossible. Current stats no longer compare to previous.

You can revise calculations and bookings in nearly infinite ways but the statements are "standardized." For executives it's money or more favorable numbers just staring you in the face saying "take me."

I know, they get audited, which is the only thing containing the corruption.

There goes the share price…

I was very fond of SuperMicro hardware back in the pentium/ppro days. One dual pentium board in earned its place on my shelf by running flawless for a decade (less power outages) as a router / load balancer. It only got air conditioning in the second half of its life.