Scott Raymond Adams (June 8, 1957 – January 13, 2026) was an American author and cartoonist. He was the creator of the Dilbert comic strip and nonfiction works of business, commentary, and satire.
Adams grew up in Windham, NY — in the Catskill Mountains. He has a younger and older sibling and was the son of a postal clerk and a real estate agent. He graduated his high school’s Valedictorian and continued studying to earn his BA in economics from Hartwick College, and furthered that to an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
His most notable work, among many he has authored or had creative input in, is Dilbert, which launched in 1989 in a handful of newspapers. Now Dilbert appears in over 2,000 newspapers, in 57 countries, and in 19 languages. “Dilbert(dot)com” was the first website for a daily syndicated comic strip and his work consistent work on cartooning earned him the Reuben award in 1997, the highest honor for such an artist. Over 20 million Dilbert books and calendars are in print and the office-themed character has been the top selling page-a-day calendar for a number of years. In addition to the notorious printed works, Adams was co-executive director of the Dilbert animated TV show that ran on UPN for two half-seasons, writing or co-writing most of the episodes.
