[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, Mu Chapter.

He also led The New York Times' coverage of the largest takeover in history, Vodafone's $183 billion hostile bid for Mannesmann.

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.

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.

[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".

[18] In March 2006, Sorkin introduced a companion website published on The New York Times, with updated news and original analysis throughout the day.

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.

[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.

[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 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.

"[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.

[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.