[HN Gopher] Sketchy financials send Supermicro auditors running ...
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       Sketchy financials send Supermicro auditors running for the hills
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 62 points
       Date   : 2024-10-30 19:07 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | WorkerBee28474 wrote:
       | This was also content in today's Money Stuff [0]. Middle section,
       | "Super Micro".
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-30/florid...
       | or https://archive.is/SGhLe
        
         | Hilift wrote:
         | Bloomberg was the source that claimed SuperMicro servers were
         | compromised by a grain of rice sized chip that only had two
         | conductor leads on it.
         | https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/12/supermicro_bloomberg_...
        
           | mikestew wrote:
           | ...and most notably, never retracted the story.
        
           | tivert wrote:
           | > Bloomberg was the source that claimed SuperMicro servers
           | were compromised by a grain of rice sized chip that only had
           | two conductor leads on it.
           | 
           | In a similar vein, Bloomberg was the source that Continental
           | and United passenger jets were humping mid-air: https://www.r
           | eddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/13xq64x/thi....
           | 
           | ...
           | 
           | You're talking about this cover, right?
           | https://westoahu.hawaii.edu/cyber/vulnerability-
           | research/did...
           | 
           | I think you're making the mistake of confusing a cover image
           | for a claim. If you have any experience with magazine cover
           | images, you shouldn't take them that literally, because
           | they're not meant to be.
        
       | StressedDev wrote:
       | This is not surprising. Hindenburge Research (a short seller)
       | documented SuperMicro's problems in August 2024
       | (https://hindenburgresearch.com/smci/).
        
         | gamblor956 wrote:
         | On the one had, while I have no reason to disbelieve this
         | specific blog post about Super Micro, I know for a fact that
         | elements of their other posts about other companies are simply
         | wrong, including a number of their claims about Roblox.
         | 
         | That's the risk with relying on short sellers' reports. Very
         | frequently, the short seller is lying.
         | 
         | With SuperMicro, the auditor's withdrawal is worth 100x the
         | short sellers' report. This is because it is very common for
         | short sellers to make up claims about a company's financials,
         | but it is very rare for an auditor to voluntarily withdraw.
        
           | rpcope1 wrote:
           | What exactly were they wrong about with regards to Roblox?
        
           | monero-xmr wrote:
           | I have heard Roblox is way worse than described. So trust
           | random internet anons however you want
        
         | lysace wrote:
         | I love how Hindenburg Research cleans up the market.
         | 
         | Is there any public data on how much money they have made,
         | doing so?
        
       | anonymousiam wrote:
       | Less than four months ago there was a lot of hype urging people
       | to buy SMCI. Can anybody really trust the financial news outlets
       | these days?
       | 
       | https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/07/13/is-super-micro-com...
       | 
       | https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor-hub/article/is-super-m...
       | 
       | https://investorplace.com/2024/03/smci-stock-alert-does-this...
        
         | OrigamiPastrami wrote:
         | Why do you think you could ever trust them?
        
         | wongarsu wrote:
         | Betteridge's law of headlines strikes again, even if not all
         | the reporters intended it that way
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | I'm not surprised about this at all. In spite of having plenty of
       | actually decent products and good demand, the company has a
       | history of acting shady and caring more about perceived
       | appearance than about doing the right thing.
       | 
       | For instance, they appear to care about security issues that
       | publicly embarrass them or that affect huge customers of theirs,
       | issues that'd've been trivial to fix, instead of fixing issues
       | for the sake of fixing them. This kind of "sales" based security
       | and their responses have forced me to encourage multiple
       | companies to use other vendors.
        
         | tracerbulletx wrote:
         | That sounds like the majority of companies to me.
        
       | arminiusreturns wrote:
       | Supermicro and Asus are just about the only ones who make the
       | motherboards I need in my COTS on-prem/dc stuff. Why don't more
       | manufacturers target the server x64 market? It's sorely needed.
       | I've built entire systems with SM, but they've long had issues,
       | there just aren't many alternatives in the space.
        
         | anonfornoreason wrote:
         | I moved to gigabyte for epyc builds, they seem to run a bit
         | quicker than super micro on initial launch and product line
         | updates.
        
         | matmatmatmat wrote:
         | I've wondered this, too. I think the market must just not be
         | big enough to support other players?
        
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