Supermicro’s Descent: A Kafkaesque Market Parable
The company, architect of end-to-end computing solutions for data centers, cloud computing, and the esoteric realms of high-performance computing, has become a case study in the futility of forecasting. Since November, it has performed a ritualistic act of self-abasement, each quarter peeling back layers of its revenue guidance like a Sisyphean ledger. From $6 billion to $7 billion, then to $5.9 billion to $6 billion, and onward-each revision a bureaucratic formality, a submission to an authority that demands perpetual recalibration. The fourth-quarter results, as if scripted by an indifferent hand, once again fell short, a performance so routine it borders on absurdist theater.