Full-time cartoonist and author
Adams's success grew, and he became a full-time cartoonist as Dilbert reached 800 newspapers. In 1996, his first business book, The Dilbert Principle, was released. It expounded on his concept of the Dilbert principle. In 1997, Adams won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist and Best Newspaper Comic Strip. 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". His writing in San Jose Mercury News West Magazine regarding the incident earned him an Orwell Award. By 2000, the comic was in 2,000 newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages.
His comic strips were adapted as an animated television series, which premiered in January 1999 and ran for two seasons on UPN. Adams served as executive producer and showrunner, along with Seinfeld writer Larry Charles. The show earned a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. Adams later said that the show had been canceled because he was white and UPN had decided to shift toward African-American viewers.
In addition to his cartoon work, Adams wrote books in various other areas, including self-improvement and religion. His book God's Debris (2001) lays out a theory of pandeism, in which God blows itself up to see what will happen, which becomes the cause of our universe. In The Religion War (2004), Adams suggests that followers of theistic religions such as Christianity and Islam are subconsciously aware that their beliefs are false, and that this awareness is reflected in their consistently acting as if these religions, and their threats of damnation for sinners, are untrue. In a 2017 interview, Adams said that his books on religion, not Dilbert, would be his ultimate legacy.
On a February 22, 2023, livestream of his Real Coffee with Scott Adams program, Adams, then 65, reacted to a poll that asked if respondents agreed that "it's okay to be white", a phrase described by the Anti-Defamation League as associated with the white supremacist movement. The poll showed 26% of black respondents disagreed with the statement and 21% were not sure. Adams, upset that nearly half did not agree, described black people as a "hate group" and said "the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people; just get the fuck away". In response to those and other related comments, Dilbert was dropped by numerous newspapers across the country, including The New York Times (in its international print edition), Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today-affiliated newspapers. Andrews McMeel Syndication, the distributor of Dilbert, announced on February 27, 2023, that it was severing all ties with Adams for his racist remarks. Portfolio, his book publisher, announced it was dropping his non-Dilbert book that was scheduled for release that September. Adams defended his remarks as hyperbole and as taken out of context in reportage; he disavowed racism and asserted that nobody would disagree with what he said were his main points: do not discriminate and avoid things that look like they will put one at risk. On March 13, Adams relaunched Dilbert as Dilbert Reborn on the subscription website Locals, minus the earlier Dilbert comics.
On November 15, 2025, he announced he would no longer draw Dilbert because his right hand had focal dystonia and his left hand was semi-paralyzed, but would continue writing the strip as long as he was able to. His art director took over as the artist.
