# Dilbert by Scott Adams

77 Hacker News commenters recommended Dilbert by Scott Adams and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Long-running office comedy that many readers say captured corporate life accurately, though critics say its later work turned bitter and cynical.

## Why people recommend it

- Accurate satire of corporate workplace (6 comments): "I found his comics not-funny when I was a kid, but then as a grown-up who had worked in a corporate environment, I found many of them funny." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46607917)) "Dilbert gave me a lot of laughs and was a perfect representation of what the corporate world looked like to my younger self" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603672)) "The originals' core premise was universal workplace satire that criticized the office as a system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614601))
- Long-running favorite with geeks (4 comments): "Dilbert was great, and one of my favorite comics for a long long time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46605097)) "his dilbert comics were a source of endless wisdom and amusement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602237)) "I always enjoyed Dilbert, one of the few of my friends who did" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602306))
- Funny even after author's conduct (3 comments): "I loved Dilbert and I really believe that you often have to separate art from artist" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603728)) "I still laugh at some of the comics, even after I knew he was a jerk." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46606665)) "His work was funny and insightful, his politics were abhorrent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46608562))
- Iconic, culturally impactful office comic (4 comments): "both the Dilbert comics and The Dilbert Principle were formative for me both personally and professionally" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46605698)) "the success in Dilbert was being the first newspaper comic to live in the topic of corporate bureaucracy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659715)) "Dilbert was an important part of our cultural landscape and made a lot of people feel good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603142))

## What people warn about

- Later strips turned bleak and cynical (6 comments): "The strips he created after being fired by his syndicate are a bleak insight into his mindset in his final years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603134)) "it was dangerously cynical and that Dilbert is to blame for his shit life because he goes along with it all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604338)) "actual nihilism is intensely offputting, and his whole life seems to have reflected that nihilism" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46651151))
- Strips felt mean-spirited and contrived (3 comments): "Those strips weren't very witty or funny to me, they just felt like contrived fantasies about putting down an opponent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46607077)) "it was dangerously cynical and that Dilbert is to blame for his shit life because he goes along with it all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604338)) "Dilbert read in that light just seems hateful more than insightful or relatable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46611300))
- Author's politics tainted his legacy (2 comments): "Adams's Trump Dementia became so bad in the last decade that it completely tainted his legacy for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46603483)) "It's too bad the Dilbert guy seemed to have lost his mind in meta level cynicism" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48473402))
- Out of date for modern workplace (2 comments): "Dilbert never really moved on to modern SV/startup/open floor plan tech" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602370)) "I cannot remember a single strip where unionization would be mentioned" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614416))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson](https://hackerapproved.com/p/calvin-and-hobbes.md): 71 recommend
- [XKCD webcomic](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xkcd-thing.md): 25 recommend
- [Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz](https://hackerapproved.com/p/peanuts.md): 14 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Dilbert by Scott Adams", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dilbert/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).