Scott Adams

American cartoonist, the creator of Dilbert (1989-2023), one of the most successful syndicated comic strips in history. Adams wrote several best-selling books featuring Dilbert, including The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook, and Adams received the Reuben award for Cartoonist of the Year in 1997. His cynical and biting look at the workplace and the foibles of management struck a nerve of identification from the "little man."

Adams grew up in the Catskill mountain region of New York State. He graduated from high school as valedictorian of his class and in 1979 earned his B.A. in economics at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. He earned his M.B.A. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. Additionally he attended Clement School of Hypnosis and in 1981 became a certified hypnotist.

From 1979 to 1986, Adams worked at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco where he held, in his words, a number of humiliating and low paying jobs. During his stint as a teller, he was robbed twice at gunpoint. He moved on, taking a position at Pacific Bell where he did various jobs of a technical and financial nature through June 1995. In 1989, he began drawing Dilbert, a composite of Adams’ co-workers over the years. Adams continued to work his day job while spending all his free time drawing the comic strip. He got many of his ideas from fans who sent him their stories citing managerial incompetence.

In 2023, Dilbert was dropped by numerous independent newspapers as well as its distributor, Andrews McMeel Syndication (which owns GoComics, from where the comic was also removed), after Adams published a video where he called Black Americans who disagreed with the slogan "It's okay to be white" a "hate group" and said White Americans should "get the hell away from" them. The video was widely described by sources such as The Economist and Reuters as containing "racist comments" and being a "racist rant". Adams stated that he disavows racism.