Andrew Ross Sorkin | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, U.S. | February 19, 1977
Alma mater | Cornell University (BS) |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1996–present |
Known for | Too Big to Fail |
Spouse | Pilar Jenny Queen (m. 2007) |
Children | 3 |
Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service published by The New York Times. He wrote the bestselling book Too Big to Fail and co-produced a movie adaptation of the book for HBO Films. He is also a co-creator of the Showtime series Billions . [1] [2]
Sorkin was born in New York City, the son of Joan Ross Sorkin, a playwright, and Laurence T. Sorkin, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel. [3] Sorkin graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1995 and earned a Bachelor of Science in communication from Cornell University in 1999 where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity. [4] He is not related to writer Aaron Sorkin, who also grew up in Scarsdale. [5] He is of Jewish descent. [6] [7]
Sorkin first joined The New York Times as a student intern during his senior year in high school. He also worked for the paper while he was in college, publishing 71 articles before he graduated. He began by writing media and technology articles while assisting the advertising columnist, Stuart Elliott. Sorkin spent the summer of 1996 working for Businessweek , before returning to The New York Times. He moved to London for part of 1998. While there, he wrote about European business and technology for The New York Times and then returned to Cornell to complete his studies. At Cornell, he was vice president of the Sigma Pi fraternity.
Sorkin joined The New York Times full-time in 1999 as the newspaper's European mergers and acquisitions reporter, and was based in London. In 2000, Sorkin became the paper's chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in New York, a position he still holds. In 2001, Sorkin founded "DealBook," an online daily financial report published by the Times. As Editor-at-Large of "DealBook," Sorkin writes a weekly column of the same name. Sorkin is also an assistant editor of business and finance news for the paper. [8]
Sorkin has broken news of major mergers and acquisitions, including Chase's acquisition of J.P. Morgan and Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Compaq. He also led The New York Times' coverage of the largest takeover in history, Vodafone's $183 billion hostile bid for Mannesmann. Additionally, he broke the news of IBM's sale of its PC business to Lenovo, Boston Scientific's $25 billion acquisition of Guidant and Symantec's $13 billion deal for Veritas Software, and reported on News Corp.'s acquisition of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal .
Sorkin has reported on the Wall Street financial crisis, including the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the government bailout of other major investment banks and AIG. He has also written about the troubled American auto industry.
In 2007, Sorkin was one of the first journalists to identify and criticize "carried interest," a tax loophole for private equity firms and hedge funds. [9] He first wrote about the topic in a column in March 2007, calling the tax treatment a "charade", [10] and later wrote about it on the front page of The New York Times. [11] He has written at least a half dozen articles critiquing the tax practice by private equity firms and advocated for the government to end the loophole. [12]
In 2014, Sorkin wrote a series of columns criticizing American corporations for trying to lower their US tax bill by merging with smaller foreign companies in a transaction known as an "inversion". [13] He also criticized the Wall Street banks that advised US companies to pursue such deals, describing the banks as "corporate co-conspirators". [14] Sorkin called on the government to end the practice. On September 22, 2014, the Obama Administration changed the tax laws to make it more difficult for US companies to merge to avoid taxes. [15]
On the PRISM surveillance program and Edward Snowden situation, Sorkin said, "I would arrest him and now I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who seems to be out there, he wants to help him get to Ecuador." [16] The next day, Sorkin apologized for the comment; Greenwald accepted, tweeting "Thank you: accepted & appreciated". [17]
In October 2001, while a journalist at The New York Times, Sorkin started DealBook, a newsletter about deal-making and Wall Street. [18] DealBook was one of the first financial news aggregation services on the Internet. [18] In March 2006, Sorkin introduced a companion website published on The New York Times, with updated news and original analysis throughout the day. [19] In 2007, DealBook won a Webby Award for Best Business Blog [20] and it won a SABEW award for overall excellence. [21] In 2008, the site won an EPpy Award for Best Business Blog. [22]
In July 2011, Sorkin became a co-anchor on CNBC's Squawk Box in addition to his duties at The New York Times. Sorkin has appeared on NBC's Today show, Charlie Rose and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, MSNBC's Hardball and Morning Joe , ABC's Good Morning America , The Chris Matthews Show , HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher , the BBC World Service, Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report , and was a frequent guest host of CNBC's Squawk Box before joining the ensemble. Sorkin also hosted a weekly seven-part, half-hour PBS talk-show series called It's the Economy, NY, which focused on how the evolving economic crisis was affecting New Yorkers. [23]
Along with Brian Koppelman and David Levien, Sorkin is a co-creator of the Showtime series Billions , an American television drama series starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis. [24] The series is loosely based on crusading federal prosecutor of financial crimes, Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. [24] [25] The show premiered in January 2016.
Sorkin appeared in a cameo on the 35th season of The Simpsons in a parody on Silicon Valley where Sorkin interviews Mr. Burns and Persephone in an episode first aired on 29 October 2023. [26]
Sorkin's book on the Wall Street banking crisis, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, was published by Viking on October 20, 2009. [27] It won the 2010 Gerald Loeb Award for best business book of the year, [28] was on the shortlist for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlisted for the 2010 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and was on The New York Times Best Seller list (non-fiction hardcover and paperback) for six months.
The book was adapted as a movie by HBO Films and premiered on HBO on May 23, 2011. The film was directed by Curtis Hanson and the screenplay was written by Peter Gould. The cast included William Hurt as Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary; Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve; Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank; James Woods as Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers; Edward Asner as Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; Cynthia Nixon as Michele Davis, assistant secretary for public affairs at Treasury; Bill Pullman as Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; as well as Topher Grace as Jim Wilkinson, Chief of Staff to the Treasury Secretary. Sorkin was a co-producer of the film and had a cameo appearance as a reporter. [29]
Sorkin shared the Gerald Loeb Award in 2005 for Deadline Writing [30] and earned another for Business Book in 2010 for his book Too Big to Fail. [28] He also won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. [31] Also in 2007, SiliconAlleyInsider.com named Sorkin one of New York's "most influential scribes." [32] In 2008, Vanity Fair magazine named Sorkin as one of 40 new members of the "Next Establishment," [33] and he appeared on the UJA Federation's 2013 list of 40 under 40 top "movers and shakers" in the Jewish community. [6] He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2022, Sorkin won an Emmy Award for his New York Times interview with WeWork founder Adam Neumann. [34]
In the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad , called "Granite State," Sorkin is briefly referenced. [35] He is said to have written an op-ed in The New York Times accusing fictional entrepreneurs Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz of making donations to drug rehabilitation centers in the hopes of cleansing their company's image after the Walter White scandal. [35] Sorkin later wrote the entire fictional article. [35] [36]
Sorkin married Pilar Jenny Queen on June 9, 2007. [37]
Sorkin has a coloboma in his left eye that sometimes makes it appear as if he has two different colored eyes. [38]
Warren Edward Buffett is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist who currently serves as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his immense investment success, Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. As of March 2024, he had a net worth of $134 billion, making him the seventh-richest person in the world.
CNBC is an American business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group, a subsidiary of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts business news and analysis programming during the morning, daytime trading day, and early-evening hours, while off-peak hours are filled by business-themed documentaries and reality television programming, as well as occasional NBC Sports presentations. CNBC operates an accompanying financial news website, CNBC.com, which includes news articles, video and podcast content, as well as subscription-based services. CNBC's headquarters and main studios are located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, while it also maintains a studio at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, New York City.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many international financial centers. Goldman Sachs is the second largest investment bank in the world by revenue and is ranked 55th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. In Forbes Global 2000 2023 Goldman Sachs ranked 34th. It is considered a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Board.
Stephen Allen Schwarzman is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm he established in 1985 with Peter G. Peterson. Schwarzman was briefly chairman of President Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.
Wasserstein Perella & Co. was a boutique investment bank established by Bruce Wasserstein, Joseph R. Perella, Bill Lambert, and Charles Ward in 1988, former bankers at First Boston Corp., until its eventual sale to Dresdner Bank in 2000 for some $1.4 billion in stock. The private equity business of the investment firm was not included in the sale and was to be sold off to existing Wasserstein shareholders.
Squawk Box is an American business news television program that airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Eastern time on CNBC. The program is co-hosted by Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Since debuting in 1995, the show has spawned a number of versions across CNBC's international channels, many of which employ a similar format. The program title originates from a term used in investment banks and stock brokerages for a permanent voice circuit or intercom used to communicate stock deals or sales priorities. It also may refer to the squawk of a bird, like a peacock, which is the logo of CNBC.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. It is the world's largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Headquartered in New York City, Blackrock has 78 offices in 38 countries, and clients in 100 countries. BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with The Vanguard Group and State Street, it is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. The head of Aladdin is Sudhir Nair. As of 2023, BlackRock was ranked 229th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Laurence Douglas Fink is an American billionaire businessman. He is a co-founder, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, an American multinational investment management corporation. BlackRock is the largest money-management firm in the world with more than US$10 trillion in assets under management. In April 2022, Fink's net worth was estimated at US$1 billion according to Forbes. He sits on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations and World Economic Forum.
Wilbur Louis Ross Jr. is an American businessman who served as the 39th United States secretary of commerce from 2017 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Ross was previously chairman and chief executive officer of WL Ross & Co from 2000 to 2017.
Erin Isabelle Burnett is an American news anchor, currently the anchor of Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN. She previously worked for CNBC as co-anchor of Squawk on the Street and the host of Street Signs. Burnett has also appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, Today, MSNBC's Morning Joe, and NBC Nightly News as well as making occasional appearances on The Celebrity Apprentice.
Perella Weinberg Partners L.P. is an American global financial services firm focused on investment banking advisory services.
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a Canadian multinational information conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and maintains its headquarters in that city's Bay Adelaide Centre.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American asset management firm that primarily invests in alternative assets. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of 2022, the company had $548 billion of assets under management, including $392 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capital, hedge funds, non-performing loans, and collateralized loan obligations, $99 billion invested in private equity, and $46.2 billion invested in real assets, which includes real estate and infrastructure. The company invests money on behalf of pension funds, financial endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors.
Robert A. Kotick is an American businessman who served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard and previously Activision from 1991 to 2023. He became the CEO of Activision after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games during the late 2000s, which led to the creation of Activision Blizzard in 2008 and him being named the company's inaugural CEO. He has also served on several boards, including The Coca-Cola Company from 2012 to 2022, and Yahoo! from 2003 to 2008. Following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Kotick retired from the company on December 29, 2023.
Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, also known as Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street, is a non-fiction book by Andrew Ross Sorkin chronicling the events of the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers from the point of view of Wall Street CEOs and US government regulators. The book was released on October 20, 2009, by Viking Press.
Steven Terner Mnuchin is an American investment banker and film producer who served as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the Cabinet of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. Serving for a full presidential term, Mnuchin was one of the few high-profile members of Trump's cabinet whom the president did not dismiss.
Adam Neumann is an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and investor. In 2010, he co-founded WeWork with Miguel McKelvey, where he was CEO from 2010 to 2019. In 2019, he co-founded a family office dubbed 166 2nd Financial Services with his wife, Rebekah Neumann, to manage their personal wealth, investing over a billion dollars in real estate and venture startups.
I am! A Christmas loving Jew! We did Chanukah last night and we will again tonight and the night after...