Scott Adams facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Scott Adams
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Adams in 2017
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Scott Raymond Adams
June 8, 1957 Windham, New York, U.S.
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| Years active | 1989–2025 |
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| YouTube information | |
| Years active | 2018–present |
| Subscribers | 150 thousand |
| Total views | 50 million |
| Subscriber and view counts updated as of September 10, 2023. | |
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is best known as the creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert. This comic strip often makes fun of office life and the world of business. Adams has also written several books about business and other topics. Before becoming a full-time cartoonist in 1995, he worked in different jobs at companies. He started drawing Dilbert in 1989 while working at Pacific Bell. By the mid-1990s, Dilbert became very famous in the United States and around the world. The comic strip stayed popular for many years, and Adams wrote several books based on it.
In February 2023, Dilbert was stopped by many newspapers and its distributor, Andrews McMeel Syndication. This happened after Adams made some comments that caused a lot of controversy. Adams then started publishing the comic strip as a webcomic on his locals.com website.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Adams was born on June 8, 1957, in Windham, New York. His parents were Paul and Virginia Adams. He enjoyed Peanuts comics when he was young and started drawing his own comics at age 6. He even won a drawing competition when he was 11 years old.
Adams finished high school at Windham-Ashland-Jewett Central School in 1975. He was the top student in his class. He then went to Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, and earned a degree in economics in 1979. After that, he moved to California and began working. In 1986, he earned a master's degree in business from the University of California, Berkeley. Adams also took a course called Dale Carnegie Training, which he said changed his life.
Career Journey
Working in Offices
From 1979 to 1986, Adams worked at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. He started as a bank teller. After a few months, he joined a management training program. He held different jobs there, like computer programmer and budget analyst.
Later, he started working at Pacific Bell. To find a new career path, he would wake up early every day, at 4 a.m., to try different activities. Drawing cartoons turned out to be the most successful. Adams created Dilbert during this time. The name Dilbert was suggested by his old boss, Mike Goodwin. The character Dogbert was based on his family's pet beagle named Lucy. Adams tried to get Dilbert and other comics published in magazines, but they were not accepted at first. However, a fan's encouraging letter made him keep trying.
He worked at Pacific Bell until June 1995. The people he met there gave him ideas for many of his Dilbert characters. In 1989, while still at Pacific Bell, Adams launched Dilbert with United Media. He kept drawing his cartoons early in the morning to keep his job. His first payment for Dilbert was about $368 a month. Dilbert slowly became more popular. It was published in 100 newspapers in 1991 and 400 by 1994. Adams believes his success came from including his email address in the comic strips. This allowed readers to send him ideas and feedback.
Full-Time Cartoonist and Author
Adams became very successful and started working as a full-time cartoonist when Dilbert was in 800 newspapers. In 1996, he released his first business book, The Dilbert Principle. This book explained his idea of the Dilbert principle, which is about how companies sometimes promote the least competent employees to management to limit their damage.
In 1997, Adams won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for being an outstanding cartoonist. He also won the award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip. By the year 2000, the Dilbert comic was in 2,000 newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages.
His comic strips were even made into a Dilbert TV series. The show started in January 1999 and ran for two seasons. Adams was an executive producer for the show. The show won an award in 1999.
Besides his cartoon work, Adams has written other books. His book God's Debris (2001) shares a unique idea about how the universe might have started.
On February 22, 2023, during a livestream of his show Real Coffee with Scott Adams, Adams made some comments that caused a lot of discussion. As a result, many newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, stopped publishing Dilbert. Andrews McMeel Syndication, the company that distributed Dilbert, announced on February 27, 2023, that they would no longer work with Adams. His book publisher also decided not to release his next book. Adams said his comments were misunderstood. On March 13, Adams relaunched Dilbert as Dilbert Reborn on the subscription website Locals.
Real Coffee with Scott Adams
In 2015, Adams started writing blog posts where he predicted that Donald Trump had a very high chance of winning the presidency. He based this on Trump's ability to persuade people. His writings on this topic became very popular, so he started writing about it regularly. Adams then turned this into a daily video show called Real Coffee with Scott Adams. He shares this show on platforms like YouTube and Locals. On the show, he talks about current events, politics, how people are persuaded, and ways to be successful.
Real Coffee with Scott Adams has featured many guests. In 2018, the musician Kanye West shared clips from one of Adams's Coffee episodes on Twitter. In 2020, President Trump also shared an episode where Adams made fun of Joe Biden.
Adams offers paid subscriptions for special content on Locals. In 2020, Adams mentioned that he expected his income from Dilbert to decrease because newspapers were closing. He said the coronavirus sped up this trend. He explained that he was changing his career for a world after the coronavirus, and the Locals platform was a big part of that plan.
Other Projects
In 1999, Adams started a company called Scott Adams Foods, Inc. This company made a product called the Dilberito and Protein Chef. The Dilberito was a vegetarian microwave burrito that came in different flavors. It was sold in some health food stores. Adams wanted to create a healthy food product that many people would like. He said his goal was to "put a dent" in health problems caused by diet and also make money.
The Dilberito did not become popular in the market. Adams spent "several years and several million dollars" on the project before selling his ideas and leaving the business in 2003. He also owned a restaurant starting in 1997, but he left that business before 2017.
Adams also helped start a service called WhenHub. This service was similar to Cameo, but instead of pre-recorded messages from celebrities, it offered live chats with experts on different topics. In 2019, Adams received some negative attention for a tweet he posted during the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. He suggested that witnesses download the WhenHub app and "set your price to take calls." He later apologized, saying his message was "poorly worded." As of 2024, the WhenHub website is no longer active.
Adams was a fan of the science fiction TV show Babylon 5. He even appeared in an episode of the show. He also had a small role in an episode of the TV series NewsRadio.
Adams has been a guest on many podcasts, including Making Sense with Sam Harris and The Tim Ferriss Show. He has also appeared on TV shows like Real Time with Bill Maher and on Fox News.
Personal Life
In the early 1990s, Adams developed a condition called focal dystonia, which made his right little finger spasm when he tried to draw. He was able to cure himself with a special exercise. However, the condition returned in late 2004, making it hard for him to draw for long periods. Since 2014, he has been drawing on a graphics tablet. He also had a voice condition called spasmodic dysphonia. In July 2008, he had surgery to fix his vocal cords, and his voice is now fully working.
Adams married Shelly Miles on July 22, 2006. They met at a gym. Adams became a stepfather to Miles' two children, Savannah and Justin. His stepson Justin passed away at age 18 in 2018. Adams and Miles divorced in 2014, but they remained friends.
On Christmas Day in 2019, Adams announced that he was engaged to Kristina Basham. They married on July 11, 2020. Basham is a model and baker. She has two daughters and is a vice president at WhenHub. On March 10, 2022, Adams announced that he and Basham were getting divorced.
Adams says he is trained as a hypnotist. He believes that using affirmations has helped him achieve many things, like doing well on a difficult business school exam and making Dilbert successful. He says that affirmations help him focus. He has described a method he used: he would imagine what he wanted and write it down 15 times a day on paper. This technique was even used by the character Dogbert in a 1989 Dilbert comic strip.
Adams continues to live in Pleasanton, California, and is active in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recognition
Adams has received many awards for his work. He won the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award and the Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 1997 for Dilbert. He was also recognized on the Thinkers50 Ranking, which lists the most influential management thinkers. He placed 31st in 2001, 27th in 2003, 12th in 2005, and 21st in 2007. In 1998, he received the Orwell Award for an article he wrote for San Jose Mercury News West Magazine.
See also
In Spanish: Scott Adams para niños
