Sep 19, 2026 · 1h 3m
Sorkin bets optimism can confront Facebook’s power
Aaron Sorkin Goes Off Script
The conversation tests whether faith in storytelling and democratic institutions can withstand technology’s influence, political distrust, and personal darkness.
- 1Sorkin revisits Facebook to dramatize how anger-driven engagement can reshape public life and powerful institutions.
- 2He defends hopeful storytelling as a way to imagine achievable heroes without ignoring real people’s complexity or institutional failures.
- 3His reflections on addiction, sobriety, and creative anxiety reveal the personal stakes behind his insistence on being liked through his work.
Don't miss
Sorkin recounts his cocaine use, sobriety, and fear that giving up drugs would end his creativity, then identifies The West Wing as a turning point.
The brief
Aaron Sorkin explains why he returned to Facebook years after The Social Network, treating The Social Reckoning as a new argument about social structures, anger, and power.
He describes the risks of fictionalizing living people and institutions, balancing research and dramatic invention while distinguishing an antihero from a villain.
Frances Haugen’s disclosures become a test of the film’s hopeful ending: Sorkin acknowledges Facebook’s continuing problems but treats her challenge as meaningful.
Sorkin links his faith in democratic institutions to family, patriotism, and political despair, defending elections even as public trust erodes.
The most revealing turn is personal: he discusses cocaine, sobriety, creative anxiety, and the desire to make audiences like him through his writing.
Featuring
Aaron Sorkin
Frances Haugen
Facebook
The West WingListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.