Oral History: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Only 43-years-old, Andrew Ross Sorkin is the rare superstar business journalist who has done it all, successfully, and likely hasn’t even come close to reaching his career zenith.

The founder of The New York Times’ DealBook, he is an accomplished business reporter, blogger, editor, author, anchor, and film producer.

Sorkin currently serves as a columnist and editor-at-large for The New York Times and co-anchor of CNBC’s signature morning program, “Squawk Box.”

He is the author of “Too Big to Fail,” the 2010 bestseller adapted as a movie by HBO Films, and co-producer of “Billions,” now in its fifth season on Showtime.

In his oral history interview, Sorkin, a masterful storyteller, credits his lifelong interest in trying to understand people and consider what it is like to walk in their shoes for helping to make his reporting stand out.

“A lot of people look at the world of money or business or politics or whatever as about big institutions, about math, about numbers, and I’ve never seen it that way,” he says. “I’ve always seen it through the prism of people. What makes you tick and what is motivating you, and what are the incentives that make you do what you do?”    

Before Andrew even graduated New York’s Scarsdale High School, he had talked his way into an internship at The New York Times.

This oral history, conducted by Dean Rotbart, editor-in-chief of NewsLuminaries.com, was recorded on February 19, 2020.

Photo Credit: Avital Rotbart, TimeinaBottlePhotography.com