Scott Adams

Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957)[1] is the artist and creator of the Dilbert comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. His Dilbert series came to national prominence through the downsizing period in 1990s America and was then distributed worldwide. Adams worked in various roles at big businesses before he became a full-time cartoonist in 1995. He writes in a satirical, often sarcastic way about the social and psychological landscape of white-collar workers in modern business corporations.

For other people named Scott Adams, see Scott Adams (disambiguation).

Scott Adams
Adams in 2007
Born
Scott Raymond Adams

(1957-06-08) June 8, 1957
Windham, New York, U.S.
Alma materHartwick College (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (MBA)
OccupationCartoonist, writer, political commentator
Notable work
Dilbert
Spouse(s)
Shelly Miles
​
​
(m. 2006; div. 2014)​

Kristina Basham
​
(m. 2020)​

Early life and education

Adams was born in 1957 in Windham, New York, the son of Paul and Virginia (née Vining) Adams.[2][3] He is of half-German descent[4] and also has English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Dutch, and a small amount of American Indian ancestry.[5][6][7]

He was a fan of the Peanuts comics while growing up, and started drawing his own comics at age 6.[8] He won a drawing competition at age 11.[8]

Adams graduated valedictorian from Windham-Ashland-Jewett Central School in 1975 in a class of 39. He remained in the area and received a BA in economics from Hartwick College in 1979.[9] He moved to California a few months after his graduation.[8] Adams earned an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986.[10]

Career

Office worker

Adams worked closely with telecommunications engineers at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco between 1979 and 1986. Upon joining the organization, he entered a management training program after being held at gunpoint twice in four months as a teller.[8] Over the years, his positions included management trainee, computer programmer, budget analyst, commercial lender, product manager, and supervisor.[8]

Adams did not become a cartoonist by mere happenstance: every morning while working at Pacific Bell he had set his alarm clock for 4 a.m.: he would get coffee and then spend the start of his day trying to create a new career for himself. Cartooning proved to be the successful venture of the many that he attempted in these hours, and Adams created Dilbert during this period of personal exploration;[11] the name came from ex-boss Mike Goodwin. Dogbert, originally named Dildog, was loosely based on his family's deceased pet beagle Lucy.[8] Submissions to various publications of both Dilbert and non-Dilbert comic panels failed to win publication. These included The New Yorker and Playboy. An inspirational letter from a fan, however, persuaded Adams to keep trying.[8]

He worked at Pacific Bell between 1986 and June 1995; the personalities he encountered there became the inspiration for many of his Dilbert characters.[12] Adams first published Dilbert with United Media in 1989, while still employed at Pacific Bell. He continued to draw his cartoons at 4 a.m., maintaining his income. His first paycheck for Dilbert was a monthly royalty check of $368.62.[8] Gradually, Dilbert became more popular and was published by 100 newspapers in 1991, and 400 by 1994. Adams attributes his success to his idea of including his e-mail address in the panels, thus facilitating feedback from readers.[8]

Full-time cartoonist

Adams's success grew, and he became a full-time cartoonist with Dilbert in 800 newspapers. In 1996, his first business book, The Dilbert Principle, was released, expounding on his concept of the Dilbert principle.[8]

Logitech CEO Pierluigi Zappacosta invited Adams to impersonate a management consultant, which he did wearing a wig and false mustache. He tricked Logitech managers into adopting a mission statement that Adams described as "so impossibly complicated that it has no real content whatsoever".[13] That year, he won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, and Best Newspaper Comic Strip of 1997, the most prestigious awards in the field.[8]

Finally, I got the call. "You're number one." I still haven't popped the champagne. I just raise the bar for what would be the right moment, and tell myself how tasty it will be if I ever accomplish something special in my work. Apparently the thing inside me that makes me work so hard is the same thing that keeps me unsatisfied.[14]

In 1998, Dilbert began as a TV series, but was canceled in 2000, but not before earning a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. By 2000, the comic was in 2,000 newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages.[8] On June 29, 2020, Adams told his followers on Twitter that Dilbert had been cancelled because he was white and that the show's network, UPN, had made a decision to shift towards African American viewers, and that in his career, he'd lost two other jobs because of his racial background.[15]

Adams was a fan of the science fiction TV series Babylon 5, and he appeared in the season 4 episode "Moments of Transition" as a character named "Mr. Adams" who hires former head of security Michael Garibaldi to locate his megalomaniacal dog and cat.[16] He also had a cameo in "Review", a third-season episode of the TV series NewsRadio, in which Matthew Brock (played by Andy Dick) becomes an obsessed Dilbert fan. Adams is credited as "Guy in line behind Dave and Joe in first scene".[17]

Other business ventures

Adams was the CEO of Scott Adams Foods, Inc., makers of the Dilberito and Protein Chef. He sold off his intellectual property in this venture when the Dilberito failed in the marketplace.[18] He also was a restaurateur but exited that business. Adams describes his failures and what he learned from them in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.

Personal life

Since late 2004, Adams has suffered from focal dystonia, which has affected his ability to draw on paper for lengthy periods.[19] He now draws the comic on a graphics tablet. He also suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes the vocal cords to behave in an abnormal manner. In July 2008, he underwent surgery to reroute the nerve connections to his vocal cords,[20] and his voice is now completely functional.[21]

Adams was trained as a hypnotist.[22] He credits affirmations for many of his achievements, including Dilbert's success and achieving a ninety-fourth percentile on a difficult qualification exam for business school, among other unlikely events. He states that the affirmations give him focus.[23] He has described a method which he has used that he says gave him success. He pictured in his mind what he wanted, and wrote it down 15 times a day on a piece of paper.[24]

In addition to his cartoon work, he has written two books on religion, God's Debris (2001), and The Religion War (2004).[25] God's Debris lays out a theory of Pandeism, in which God blows itself up to see what will happen, which becomes the cause of our universe.[26] In God's Debris, Adams suggests that followers of theistic religions such as Christianity and Islam are inherently subconsciously aware that their religions are false, and that this awareness is reflected in their consistently acting like these religions, and their threats of damnation for sinners, are false. In a 2017 interview Adams said these books would be "his ultimate legacy".[27]

Adams married Shelly Miles aboard a yacht, the Galaxy Commodore, on July 22, 2006, in the San Francisco Bay, in a ceremony conducted by the ship's captain.[28] The two had met at a gym in Pleasanton, California, where Miles was an employee and Adams was a customer. By Miles, Adams had two step-children, Savannah and Justin, the latter of whom died of an opioid overdose involving fentanyl in 2018, at the age of 18, prompting Adams to start the service WhenHub.[29][30][31][32] Adams and Miles divorced in 2014, and Adams said the two remained friends, with Miles moving only one block away after their separation.[33]

On Christmas Day in 2019, Adams announced on his podcast that he was engaged to Kristina Basham.[34] On July 12, 2020 Scott Adams announced on his pod show "Real Coffee With Scott Adams" that he had married Kristina Basham on July 11, 2020. Kristina Basham, a model and baker, has two daughters, and is vice president of his company, WhenHub.[35]

Politics

Adams has often commented on political matters. In 2016 he wrote on his blog "I don't vote and I am not a member of a political party."[36] In 2007, he suggested that Michael Bloomberg would make a good presidential candidate.[37] Before the 2008 presidential election he said, "On social issues, I lean libertarian, minus the crazy stuff",[38] but said in December 2011 that, if he were president, he would do whatever Bill Clinton advised him to do because that "would lead to policies that are a sensible middle ground".[39] On October 17, 2012, he wrote "while I don't agree with Romney's positions on most topics, I'm endorsing him for president".[40] In a blog post from September 2017, Adams described himself as being "left of Bernie [Sanders], but with a preference for plans that can work".[41]

In 2015, although Adams stated that he would not endorse a candidate for the 2016 elections, he repeatedly praised Donald Trump's persuasion skills, especially on his blog,[42][43] extensively detailing what he called Trump's "talent stack",[44] the then-candidate's unusual skill set combination. Adams predicted that Trump would win the Republican nomination and the general election.[45]

Of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, he said the following: "If you're an undecided voter, and male, you're seeing something different. You're seeing a celebration that your role in society is permanently diminished. And it's happening in an impressive venue that was, in all likelihood, designed and built mostly by men."[46] Adams said that he temporarily endorsed Hillary Clinton out of fear for his own life, stating that he had received direct and indirect death threats ("Where I live, in California, it is not safe to be seen as supportive of anything Trump says or does. So I fixed that.").[47] In late September, however, Adams switched his endorsement from Clinton to Trump. Among his primary reasons for the switch were his respect for Trump's persuasion skills over Clinton's, Clinton's proposal to raise the inheritance tax, and his concerns over Clinton's health.[48] Adams states that being labelled a "Donald Trump apologist" ended his public speaking career and reduced his income by about 40%.[47]

Adams predicted in March 2020 that Trump, Sanders and Joe Biden would all contract COVID-19 and that one of them would die from its effects by the end of the year; in December 2020, when all three men remained alive (although Trump did catch the virus and survived), Politico named Adams' prediction one of "the most audacious, confident and spectacularly incorrect prognostications about the year".[49] Adams further predicted on July 1, 2020 that if Biden were to win the 2020 presidential election then Republicans would be hunted and there's a "good chance" they'll be "dead within a year".[50] Adams predicted in October 2020 that Trump would be reelected.[51][52]

Publications

Dilbert compilations

Special compilations (annotated, favorites, etc.)

Other Dilbert books
  • Telling It Like It Isn't (1996)
  • You Don't Need Experience If You've Got Attitude (1996)
  • Access Denied: Dilbert's Quest for Love in the Nineties (1996)
  • Conversations With Dogbert (1996)
  • Work is a Contact Sport (1997)
  • The Boss: Nameless, Blameless and Shameless (1997)
  • The Dilbert Bunch (1997)
  • No You'd Better Watch Out (1997)
  • Please Don't Feed The Egos (1997)
  • Random Acts of Catness (1998)
  • You Can't Schedule Stupidity (1998)
  • Dilbert Meeting Book Exceeding Tech Limits (1998)
  • Trapped In A Dilbert World: Book Of Days (1998)
  • Work—The Wally Way (1999)
  • Alice in Blunderland (1999)
  • Dilbert Sudoku Comic Digest: 200 Puzzles Plus 50 Classic Dilbert Cartoons (2008)

Non-Dilbert publications

Awards

Adams has received recognition for his work, including the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award and Newspaper Comic Strip Award for 1997 for his work on Dilbert. He had also been climbing the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) rankings of the 50 most influential management thinkers, placing 31st in 2001,[53] 27th in 2003,[54] and 12th in 2005,[55] but fell to 21st in 2007.[56] He did not place in 2009.[57]

He received the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language for his participation in "Mission Impertinent".[58]

Adams has coined or popularized several words and phrases over the years, including Confusopoly (businesses that stay afloat only by intentionally misleading their customers), The Dilbert principle (a variant on the famous Peter Principle), Elbonia as shorthand for offshore work, and Pointy-Haired Boss / PHB and Induhvidual as insults.

References
  1. "Scott Adams, fully Scott Raymond Adams - Great Thoughts Treasury". www.greatthoughtstreasury.com. Archived from the original on January 1, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  2. "Virginia Adams obituary". Ancestry. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  3. Adams, Scott (1999). El Futuro de Dilbert: Como Prosperar en el Siglo XXI Gracias a la Esupidez [Dilbert's future: how to prosper in the XXI Century thanks to stupidity] (in Spanish). Ediciones Granica. p. 5. ISBN 978-84-7577615-6. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
  4. Adams, Scott. "Let's Talk About Hitler". Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  5. Adams, Scott. "Immigration". Retrieved November 28, 2016.
  6. Adams, Scott. "I'm part Native American". Twitter. Retrieved November 28, 2016.
  7. Adams, Scott. "Joe Rogan Experience No. 874". You tube. Retrieved November 28, 2016.
  8. Adams, Scott (2008). Dilbert 2.0: 20 years of Dilbert. Jamaica City: Andrews McMeel. ISBN 978-0-7407-7735-6.
  9. "About Scott Adams". Scott Adams Says. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  10. "Scott Adams, MBA 86". Haas School of Business. Archived from the original on October 19, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  11. You Don't Become Hitler at 70, October 3, 2020
  12. Spicer, André (November 23, 2017). "From inboxing to thought showers: how business bullshit took over". The Guardian.
  13. O'Brien, Tia (November 16, 1997). "Mission: Impertinent". San Jose Mercury News. Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
  14. "The Dilbert Blog". Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  15. "'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams: 'I lost my TV show for being white'". The Mercury News. June 29, 2020. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  16. Moments of Transition at IMDb
  17. Review at IMDb
  18. Stone, Brad (November 11, 2007). "The Tables Turn for Dilbert's Creator". New York Times.
  19. Sordyl, Samantha (May 10, 2005). "Scott Adams, Drawing the Line". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  20. Kanin, Zachary (October 29, 2008). "An Interview with the "Dilbert" Cartoonist Scott Adams". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 29, 2008.
  21. "'Dilbert' creator recovers from rare disorder". MSNBC. October 27, 2006. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  22. Mentioned in Dilbert: A Treasury of Sunday Strips
  23. Mentioned in The Dilbert Future
  24. Robert Frank (April 12, 2012). "Can You Get Rich by Visualizing Yourself Rich?". The Wall Street Journal.
  25. Nolan, Hamilton (March 22, 2017). "Actually The "Dilbert" Guy's Ultimate Legacy Will Be These Great Religion Books He Wrote". Concourse. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  26. Knujon Mapson, "A Brief History of Pandeism," Pandeism: An Anthology (2017), p. 31-32.
  27. Winter, Caroline (March 22, 2017). "How Scott Adams Got Hypnotized by Trump". Bloomberg. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  28. "'Dilbert' cartoon creator ties the knot". East Bay Times. July 31, 2006. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  29. Barney, Chuck (October 2, 2018). "'Dilbert' artist Scott Adams' stepson dead after fentanyl overdose". The Mercury News. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
  30. Scott Adams (October 17, 2018). "My Stepson Died of an Opioid Overdose". Scott Adams Says. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  31. Scott Adams (February 18, 2014). "What's the Goal with Robots Read News?". The Scott Adams Blog. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
  32. "'Dilbert' Creator Scott Adams Tries to Sell Interviews With Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting Survivors", The daily beast.
  33. "Dilbert Creator Discovers Single Life and Writes New Rules". Psychology Today. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  34. "Scott Adams Announces Engagement to Kristina Basham". Culttture. December 30, 2019. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  35. Winter, Caroline (March 22, 2017). "How Donald Trump Hypnotized Scott Adams". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on March 26, 2017.
  36. Adams, Scott (March 24, 2016). "Who's Afraid of Donald Trump?". Scott Adams Says. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  37. Scott Adams (May 16, 2007). "Bloomberg for President?". The Dilbert Blog. Archived from the original on May 19, 2007. Retrieved February 14, 2011.
  38. "Commentary: Dilbert guy's economic poll on McCain, Obama — CNN". CNN. September 16, 2008. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  39. Scott Adams (December 5, 2011). "The Persuasive Candidate". The Dilbert Blog. Archived from the original on January 8, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
  40. Scott Adams (October 17, 2012). "Firing Offense". The Dilbert Blog. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  41. "How a Silicon Valley Investor Does Leadership". Scott Adams Says. September 21, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  42. "The Trump Master Persuader Index and Reading List". Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  43. "Dilbert Creator Scott Adams on Donald Trump's "Linguistic Kill Shots"".
  44. "The Trump Talent Stack". Scott Adams Says.
  45. Suebsaeng, Asawin (September 14, 2015). "'Dilbert' Creator on How Trump Is Like The Founding Fathers & Jesus". The Daily Beast.
  46. "Selling Past the Close". Scott Adams Says. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  47. "When Persuasion Turns Deadly". Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  48. "Why I Switched My Endorsement from Clinton to Trump". Scott Adams Says. September 25, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  49. Stanton, Zack (December 29, 2020). "The Worst Predictions of 2020". Politico. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  50. Edelman, KJ. "Dilbert Creator Says 'Republicans Will Be Hunted' if Biden Elected: 'Good Chance You Will be Dead Within the Year'". Mediaite.
  51. Scott Adams (October 27, 2020), Episode 1167, 10 minutes in, archived from the original on December 30, 2020
  52. Scott Adams on The Beat with Ari Melber, MSNBC, October 19, 2020
  53. "2001 Results". The Thinkers 50. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  54. "2003 Results". The Thinkers 50. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  55. "2005 Results". The Thinkers 50. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  56. "2007Results". The Thinkers 50. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  57. "2009 Results". The Thinkers 50. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  58. "George Orwell Awards". National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
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