The Insane Productivity of Andrew Ross Sorkin

David Rosenthal (0:00)

Hello, Acquired Listeners. We are coming to you today with a very fun ACQ2 interview with our buddy, Andrew Ross Sorkin. We got to know Andrew over the summer for our Radio City Show, where he had a delightful cameo with us. And he's got a new book, 1929 And he's doing a book tour, and we said, hey, do you want to come on ACQ2, given you're doing the book tour? And rather than just talking about the book, why don't we talk about how the heck do you do all of this? That you do, like, we're dying just making one show. You know, you do like four things every day.

Ben Gilbert (0:38)

So there's the New York Times DealBook, the daily newsletter. There's the DealBook Summit, which happens every December. There's, of course, that he co-created the show Billions. He is every single morning from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern on CNBC doing Squawk Box. He's written Too Big to Fail and 1929

David Rosenthal (0:59)

Two major books. Yeah. This was a very fun conversation.

Ben Gilbert (1:02)

So today's conversation is a little bit, how does he do it all? But also, we realize Andrew's never actually told this story before of how it all came to be. How did he start a business daily email newsletter in 2001? I mean, this is over a decade before Stratecary, I don't know, 15 years before the era of Substack. Doing it inside, now the biggest newspaper in the US, I think in the world. And now every December doing DealBook Summit, which to me is kind of the flagship canonical business interview forum in the world. I mean, that's more than that business technology politics. So listeners, this conversation was especially interested to David and I for navel gazing reasons, but we think Andrew's story is just fascinating. It really illustrates the shift in the media landscape, and I am just so interested in how he maintains the quality bar that he does across such a wide, wide set of activities. So please enjoy our conversation on the insane productivity of Andrew Ross Sorkin. Andrew, you're wearing something different than you were wearing on Squawk Box this morning. How does that work?

David Rosenthal (2:13)

Yeah, what's your wardrobe change throughout the day look like?

Andrew Ross Sorkin (2:16)

So I did that for you, to be honest with you.

Ben Gilbert (2:19)

Really?

Andrew Ross Sorkin (2:19)

Yes, usually, I'm in a suit basically all day. I kind of sleep in a suit with a tie. And then I thought to myself, we're doing this podcast, there might be video, these guys are probably going to wear sweaters or look cool, and I'm going to look like some old man in a suit, I'll put a sweater on. So that's what's going on here.

Ben Gilbert (2:42)

Okay. So Andrew, I've always thought of you as a New York Times reporter, I've thought of you as the founder of DealBook. You also do Squawk Box. How do you think about that, especially since that's over by what, 9 a.m.?

Andrew Ross Sorkin (2:55)

It is over by 9 a.m., but it's a full three hours, which oftentimes feels like a lot longer than that. Not in the moment. I think we have a ball in the moment. But for me, it's the way I begin my day, and all the things that I try to do, in many ways I'm doing DealBook, oftentimes finishing it up even before Squawk Box starts, and then doing Squawk Box, and then going back to DealBook and going to other projects, and they all sort of inform each other in interesting ways. About 15 years ago, I want to say, in 2011, I used to be a guest on Squawk Box often, and they called me up, and they said, hey, would you want to be the host of this show? And I thought, that's crazy. I can't read a teleprompter. I've never done this before. This is insane.

David Rosenthal (3:44)

Was one of the other hosts retiring, or how did this...

Andrew Ross Sorkin (3:47)

A couple of things had happened, actually. I don't know if you remember a legendary journalist named Mark Haynes, who was the original host of Squawk Box, and then was on a show called Squawk on the Street, passed away, and they were going to reshape Squawk on the Street, and Carl Quintanilla, who was one of the three hosts of Squawk Box, was going to move to that show. And so they were looking for somebody to put in his chair.

And I thought, you know, I love my job at the Times. I'd been there since I was 18 years old. And they were willing to have me do the show in the morning and also allow me to continue doing a lot of the other work that I enjoy doing. I could have the best of both worlds. This would be great. And as long as I could be awake at that hour. Now, I was always up early. So the up early was not the hard part, though. I don't think I was up early with makeup on and lights. I was always up early because I was publishing DealBook. Our newsletter, which typically was going out between 7 and 8 o'clock in the morning. So I always did have to get up early. But I was often in my pajamas. I wasn't interviewing people.