Scott Adams, Dilbert Creator and Cartoonist, Dies at 68

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Scott Adams, the creator of the popular “Dilbert” comic strip, has died at the age of 68 after a fight with metastatic prostate cancer. He announced his diagnosis in May, explaining the cancer had spread to his bones. The news was confirmed by people he worked with at The Scott Adams School (formerly Coffee With Scott Adams, a YouTube livestream channel he frequently used), with his last video appearing on December 8, 2025.

Scott Adams, born in Windham, New York, in 1957, created the Dilbert comic strip after drawing inspiration from his own experiences working in offices. The strip playfully criticizes office life and especially frustrating management practices. Despite facing numerous rejections, Adams persevered, and Dilbert eventually appeared in newspapers while he still held a day job. The comic’s popularity led to a two-season animated series co-created with Larry Charles of Seinfeld, as well as a video game called Dilbert’s Desktop Games.

The comic strip Dilbert appeared in newspapers for 34 years, from 1989 to 2023. It was canceled after creator Scott Adams made racially charged comments in a YouTube video, claiming Black people were a “hate group.” Despite the cancellation, Adams continued to create Dilbert as a webcomic, rebranding it as “Dilbert Reborn.” However, the strip published on November 15, 2025, marked the final one personally written and drawn by Adams.

Shelly Miles, Adams’s first wife, who was married to the creator from 2006 to 2014 but remained friends after their divorce, shared a written final statement from Adams on a livestream this morning. It reads in part:

If you’re reading this, something has gone wrong. I want to explain a few things before I’m gone. My body stopped working before my mind did, so I’m still thinking clearly. I’m writing this on January 1, 2026, and if you have questions about my will or anything else I’ve decided, please know that I made these choices freely and without anyone influencing me.

I want to share a bit about my life. For a long time, I focused on being a good husband and father, as that’s what gave my life purpose. Although my marriage eventually ended on good terms, I cherish the years we had and the family we created. After the divorce, I needed a new direction, a new sense of meaning. So, I dedicated myself to helping others, consciously deciding to make a difference. Since then, I’ve been looking for ways to positively impact people’s lives in any way I can.

That was when I began to transition from drawing the Dilbert comic strip to writing books I hoped would help people. I felt I’d learned enough from my own experiences to share those lessons. I kept creating Dilbert comics, and thankfully, writing came naturally to me. My first book aiming to be helpful was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. It became very popular, with many people saying it influenced their lives and inspired similar books. Even now, I regularly hear from readers about the positive impact it had on them.

I started a live podcast called Coffee with Scott Adams hoping to help people think a little differently about life. It turned into something even bigger, though – a real community for people who were feeling lonely, and that meant the world to me. I truly had a fantastic life, and I poured everything I had into my work. If you got anything positive from it, please pay that forward however you can. That’s the legacy I’d love to leave behind: just be useful, and know that I loved all of you until the very end. – Scott Adams

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2026-01-13 19:16