Scott Adams, the storied cartoonist of Dilbert and his funny accomplices, died on Tuesday, at age 68, after a short but painful bout with prostate cancer.
His death was expected as Adams kept giving updates on social media about his condition deteriorating despite intervention from President Trump, whose help enabled Adams to receive experimental drugs to fight his cancer.
For nearly thirty years, Adams meticulously laid out the life of a cubicle worker in a modern, white-collar office. It was all conveyed through dry humor that many readers often didn't catch on the first read.
The main character of the comic strip, Dilbert, is an engineer with a pocket protector, curled-up tie, and no mouth. He is the central figure who usually handles the office frustrations, the boss's bad ideas, and everyday absurdities.
In a 1993 comic strip––one of Adams's favorites––Dilbert is talking to someone who doesn't know Unix, a popular operating system that runs modern computers. He quips, poking fun at the nerdy tech culture: "Unix is really, really complicated. Only strange, antisocial people (the kind who don't like talking to others and act a bit weird) can actually understand and use it well."
Wally, Dilbert’s super-lazy, brilliant but unmotivated coworker who gets many of the best jokes (especially about avoiding work and outsmarting the system), was another popular Adams creation. He was in a vast number of strips and often stole the show with his schemes, but was never the lead. The boss always wanted to push Wally to work harder, give him a bad review, or scare him into doing more.
In one popular strip, Wally explains his "value": Being bad at the job actually makes him valuable to the company. Because if they fire him, it would cost a lot of money (like severance pay, finding a replacement, training someone new). So, keeping him around, even though he's useless, is cheaper and easier than getting rid of him. The boss agrees with this twisted logic, and Wally gets away with it.
Adams deftly depicted how office politics sometimes reward the wrong people: the lazy or incompetent end up protected or even rewarded. At the same time, hard workers bear the brunt.
The strip caught on. At its peak, Dilbert was published in over 2,000 newspapers every day. The cartoon went on to become an animated TV series. Adams even wrote the Dilbert Principle, a satirical concept of management. In it, he declared that companies systematically promote their least competent and most ineffective employees to management positions. This way, they limit the damage such people can do to actual productive work, which gets done by lower-level workers.
Adams's claim to infamy, however, was as a conservative commentator. Liberal media outlets groaned at how Adams promoted conservative beliefs even as Dilbert, the comic strip, remained a mainstay in their publications.
In 2015, when the rest of the liberal media were mocking then-candidate Trump's chances of winning the 2016 election, Adams gave Trump a 98% chance of victory.
Adams amplified MAGA talking points like white victimhood, skepticism toward progressive social policies, and criticism of anti-racism efforts. He was critical of identity politics, "wokeness," and perceived anti-white bias, earning him praise from some Black and White conservatives. He did all of this through his podcast, "Real Coffee With Scott Adams."
Adams had long drawn criticism from liberal media outlets, and in 2023, a single podcast episode proved decisive. On an episode of "Real Coffee With Scott Adams," referring to a Rasmussen poll that found that only 53 percent of Black Americans agreed with the statement, "It's OK to be white," he went on a five-minute rant that ended his career.
The poll showed that 53% of Black respondents agreed, 26% disagreed, and 21% were unsure. It meant that 47% of Blacks didn't clearly affirm it. Adams, who had jokingly identified as Black for years to support and align with the community (believing it offered the most significant societal benefit), declared this made Black Americans a "hate group" toward whites.
Shocked by the results, Adams announced he was re-identifying as white, abandoning efforts to help Black Americans because it no longer seemed rational or rewarding. He shockingly advised white people to "get the hell away" from Black people for safety and quality of life, citing correlations with neighborhood issues (even referencing Don Lemon), while insisting this meant separation, not hostility or war: just distancing, as "this can't be fixed."
The press immediately condemned Adams as a racist. As the New York Times said in its obituary: "Many major newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times (in its international print edition) dropped 'Dilbert." So did the USA Today Network, which at the time had more than 200 newspapers. Soon after, Andrews McMeel Universal, which by then was syndicating "Dilbert" to about 1,400 newspapers, cut its ties to Mr. Adams.
Adams, according to the Times, responded: "Most of my income will be gone by next week...My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can't come back from this, am I right?"
Adams, whose first strips received recognition from United Features Syndicate in 1989 when UFS agreed to publish them in 35 newspapers, had been in the public eye for 34 years. Not one of his Dilbert strips displayed racism, although the modern American office features people of all races.
The episode unfolded during an unusually charged national debate over race and public policy. The Biden administration made race central to everything it did. DEI became official policy at every level of government. Biden personally emphasized race-focused policies as part of his administration’s broader equity agenda. Remember that Biden called Georgia's 2021 electoral reforms the "Jim Crow laws in the 21st Century," for restricting voting access.
In April 2021, liberal advocacy groups pushed for boycotts of Georgia-based companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines for not opposing the bill strongly enough beforehand. Biden voiced strong support for moving the MLB All-Star Game out of Atlanta if players felt it necessary, saying he'd back such a decision to demonstrate values on voting rights. MLB announced the relocation of the Atlanta Braves from Truist Park in Atlanta to Coors Field in Denver on April 2, 2021, citing the law's restrictions.
The last two election cycles under Georgia's new law proceeded without major legal challenges. There were no complaints about restricted voter access or fraud.
There will never be another Scott Adams. He was a classic American success story who moved millions worldwide.
RIP, Scott Adams. Thank you for Dilbert.
👉 Quick Reads
I. Your Cost Of Living Has Quietly Exploded
Over the past five years, everyday expenses have surged far beyond the headline inflation rate, with auto insurance up 64 percent, gasoline nearly 46 percent, ground beef 69 percent, eggs 83 percent, and coffee a staggering 100 percent, showing why families feel poorer even when official inflation numbers appear to be easing.
II. America Printed Another $1.6 Trillion In 2025
U.S. money supply expanded by $1.65 trillion in 2025, lifting total M2 to a record $26.7 trillion and marking the largest annual increase since 2021. Since mid-2023, M2 has grown by $3.7 trillion, or about $116 billion a month, reversing the earlier contraction and signaling a powerful return of liquidity to the system.
III. Gold Is Flashing A Debt Warning
Gold is pressing toward $4,650 an ounce at the same time Japan’s government borrowing costs are surging to multi-decade highs, an unusual pairing that signals rising global anxiety about runaway public debt. Japan’s crisis is the most visible, but the message is broader. When gold rallies while bonds sell off, markets are quietly telling policymakers that confidence in fiscal discipline is wearing thin.
📊 Market Mood — Wednesday, January 14, 2025
🟩 Futures Slip as Bank Earnings Roll On
U.S. futures edge lower after JPMorgan’s profit miss, with more major banks reporting today and setting the tone for early-2026 risk appetite.
🟧 China’s Record Trade Surplus Raises Flags
Beijing posts a $1.2 trillion surplus for 2025, highlighting how Chinese exporters are rerouting trade away from the U.S. amid Trump-era tariffs.
🟨 Gold Breaks to New Highs
Bullion surges above $4,640 as softer core CPI reinforces bets on Fed rate cuts and Iran unrest drives safe-haven demand.
🟥 Oil Pulls Back After Strong Run
Crude gives up recent gains on rising U.S. inventories and Venezuela resuming exports, even as Middle East risks stay elevated.
🗓️ Key Economic Events — Wednesday, January 14, 2025
🟧 08:30 AM — PPI (MoM)
A wholesale inflation gauge that feeds into future consumer price pressures and shapes Fed expectations.
🟨 08:30 AM — Retail Sales (MoM)
Tracks overall consumer spending momentum, the backbone of U.S. economic growth.
🟨 08:30 AM — Core Retail Sales (MoM)
Ex-auto view of spending trends, offering a cleaner read on underlying demand.
🟦 10:00 AM — Existing Home Sales (Dec)
Signals housing-market health and affordability conditions heading into the new year.
🟥 10:30 AM — Crude Oil Inventories
Weekly update on U.S. oil stockpiles, often moving energy prices and inflation expectations.
editor-tippinsights@technometrica.com
