Scott Adams, famous for creating Dilbert and endorsing Trump in 2015, passed away last week. Several years ago, I found his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, useful, particularly his idea of “talent stacking,” which is to get good enough to be at the top 25% of two different disciplines. (In my case, I focused on writing and marketing.) 

While I appreciate him for publishing his useful ideas so everyone could access it, I wouldn’t say I agreed with his opinions on politics and feelings towards people of different races. They made me feel weird.

In his great essay remembering Scott, Scott Alexander wrote an outstanding passage:

I’m serious when I say I consider Adams a teacher. For me, he was the sort of teacher who shows you what to avoid; for many others, he was the type who serves as inspiration. These roles aren’t quite opposites – they’re both downstream of a man who blazed his own path, and who recorded every step he took, with unusual grace and humor, as documentation for those who would face a choice of whether or not to follow. This wasn’t a coincidence, but the conscious and worthy project of his life. Just for today, I’ll consider myself part of the same student body as all the other Adams fans, and join my fellows in tribute to our fallen instructor. 

When I read this passage, my mind drifts to Ye (fka Kanye West), who Scott Adams has referenced, and who at least one other person has compared Scott to. I’m much more familiar with Ye’s work than Scott’s. 

Ye’s inspiration, music, and interviews helped me dare to write and express myself. I earnestly believe that Ye has given many gifts to the world, so much so that I edited a book of Ye’s interviews, published in the mid-2010s. I wouldn’t have done so if I didn’t feel like he was a teacher, and that his lessons were useful. Plus, he nurtured, introduced, and/or sustained talented people like Virgil Abloh, John Legend, Teyana Taylor, and many, many, others to the world.

However, having followed Ye’s life since, as well as his company’s tumultuous journey, his most salient lessons—on self-care and mental health, on untempered ambition, as well as relying on anger, pain, and controversy—have shown me what to avoid.