Super Micro Computer Investors Look for Exits

3/31/2026 at 9:46:31 PM

Liaw is family and it is not possible for a company like this to separate family from company interests.

He is clearly unwilling to change, so, Super Micro is just going to die a painful death.

by Eufrat

4/1/2026 at 1:06:55 AM

Their hardware is garbage; nothing of value will be lost.

by SoftTalker

4/1/2026 at 6:48:58 PM

Their products had some problems, e.g. buggy BIOS/firmware, but they were not that bad. I have 9-year old servers assembled with SuperMicro motherboards that continue to work fine.

If they disappear, something of value will be lost, because during the last decade, approximately since the launch of the Intel Skylake Server CPUs, when there was a big jump in price for server hardware, every year there are fewer and fewer options available for the purchasers of server hardware who are individuals or small businesses, who do not want to pay 5-digit prices for a server.

Unlike a decade ago, nowadays the retail prices for most server components have become ridiculously higher in comparison with the heavily discounted prices paid by big companies, so many shops that were selling server hardware to low-volume customers have closed, because those can no longer afford the new prices.

The disappearance of SuperMicro will make even harder to find server hardware at retail.

by adrian_b

4/2/2026 at 3:16:05 AM

Their stuff works, sometimes for years. Sometimes it's flaky out of the box. You never quite know what you're going to get. Their quality control and build quality is IMO poor.

by SoftTalker

3/31/2026 at 8:23:40 PM

I would think HP or Dell could buy this but given what they did it would require to much. The company should die and the employees that contributed to this should be in jail..

by oldnetguy

3/31/2026 at 11:24:16 PM

What justification is there for employee jail time?

by protocolture

3/31/2026 at 11:43:36 PM

> Supermicro Co-Founder Indicted in $2.5 Billion Nvidia GPU Smuggling Scheme

> On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it had indicted 71-year-old co-founder Wally Liaw, along with a Supermicro sales manager in Taiwan, Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, and a contractor Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun for conspiring to smuggle the GPUs starting in 2024.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/co-founder-of-us-server-maker-ind...

> Prosecutors allege that Mr Liaw used brokers to order servers containing advanced Nvidia chips on behalf of a “pass-through” entity in South-East Asia; many were assembled in America and shipped to that entity, then repackaged in unmarked boxes and sent on to China. To fool customs inspectors, those involved allegedly created thousands of “dummy” servers to sit in the warehouses where the buyer claimed to store the equipment.

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/03/26/a-new-case-of-...

The good news jail time for a founder is sounding quite possible.

by michaelt

4/1/2026 at 12:05:18 AM

Microchip salesman indicted for selling microchips.

What a weird country.

by protocolture

4/1/2026 at 12:56:44 AM

White collar criminals almost exclusively break laws in their own line of business... because that's what they do.

by kube-system

4/1/2026 at 12:51:54 AM

It's no weirder than drug dealer being indicated for selling a controlled substance.

by charcircuit

4/1/2026 at 2:57:16 AM

Its closer to "food seller, indicted for selling otherwise legal food to people the government randomly decided are unable to eat"

by protocolture

4/1/2026 at 5:12:38 PM

Right, that is how embargo's and other similar restrictions work all over the world.

Kind of like "Gun seller, indicted for selling otherwise legal guns to people the government randomly decide are unable to buy guns"

Your particular point of view decides if it's random or not.

by pixl97

4/1/2026 at 2:27:04 PM

It's not at all a similar analogy, and you know it. China is a threat. I assume you personally don't care about it, but it is in our interests that it does not dominate the AI industry.

by deburo

4/1/2026 at 10:23:17 PM

China is a threat, if you live in Taiwan. They lack the ability to project force any further than that. You pin down IR guys on this issue they eventually relent and suggest actually the biggest issue with China is that their claimed zone of control includes a lot of ocean trade routes. But honestly, Xi has been better for international trade than any US admin in the last 15 years, I don't see them doing anything but protecting it. They are like 100 times less threatening than the USA, and that was before president tantrum, who has acted (quite recently) to destabilize global trade.

by protocolture

3/31/2026 at 11:46:24 PM

contributed to this

If you're helping break federal law and you know about it, you should go to jail.

That's what I presume the "contributed to this" meant, this=this crime

by b112

3/31/2026 at 11:52:55 PM

Some extreme double standards?

Unless you think there is some reason why those running that same federal government are free to commit any type of federal crimes they wish with no repercussions...

by pqtyw

4/1/2026 at 6:48:34 AM

Your assertion is that we should stop enforcing all laws?

Or only this specific crime? Why this crime, and not others? If it's because you don't "like" this law, then aren't you Mr Double Standards, not I? Aren't I saying "it's a law, enforce it" and aren't you saying "We need a separate standard for laws I personally don't like"?

Are you traveling around the country, uttering this at all court actions? Or do you just lambast random people on the internet, for random laws?

I'm not interested in your country's weird left/right, team player, inane politics. Injecting politics into every conversation is literally what's wrong with your country.

by b112

4/1/2026 at 3:57:26 PM

No, laws should be imposed top to bottom. If those at the top who are making the laws can do absolutely anything with no repercussions while everyone else is punished that severely decreases the trust anyone has in the system and weakens it long-term.

Also an extreme misallocation of resources, maybe you should not prioritize the people who are.

> then aren't you Mr Double Standards, not I? Aren't I saying "it's a law, enforce it" and aren't you saying

Nope, rather just not impose it arbitrarily and only punish the people who haven't paid off the right set of politicians.

> Injecting politics into every conversation

This is an inherently political topic, though?

by pqtyw

3/31/2026 at 11:38:51 PM

> Super Micro Computer has its investors looking for exits with the recent self-inflicted wounds by the company, despite soaring sales.

> ...

> Shares of Super Micro were up as much as 5.4% on Tuesday.

Huh?

by duk3luk3

4/1/2026 at 12:07:00 AM

It might seem backwards at first glance but this is very common. There's a saying "buy the rumor, sell the news". The big market moves are made before the news is ever announced... Supermicro tanked a third of their value 11 days ago.

The people with billions of dollars in the market know what is happening with their portfolio companies before it is announced, they're not waiting around for newspaper to say something. Newspapers are for us nobodies at home. If you've got billions to play with, you can get your own high-quality primary sources of information that are better and faster.

by kube-system

4/1/2026 at 12:32:40 AM

Actually closed the day up 8.14%. (Disclosure I'm a shareholder and continuing to hold. Bought more when it was down 30% in a single day). These media storms almost always fade and assuming sales and profits continue will rebound. Not financial advice.

by nodesocket

3/31/2026 at 9:55:59 PM

Super Micro will be fine. Felony charges are trendy with US CEOs these days.

by josefritzishere

4/1/2026 at 12:20:11 AM

The next Secretary of Everything's Computer

by mcs5280

3/31/2026 at 8:00:08 PM

Buying BTC at 110%+ of value was never a good idea.

by gsmiznith

4/1/2026 at 7:53:58 AM

I think you might be mixing up Super Micro Computer and MicroStrategy. They are different crazy companies (crazy for different reasons).

by ageitgey