Figuring Out Hits 22 Million, Passes Two YouTube Rivals

“Figuring Out with Raj Shamani,” an India-made interview podcast, reached 22 million YouTube subscribers on November 12, 2026, narrowly passing “The Diary of a CEO” and “The Joe Rogan Experience.” The November 13 press release listed Bartlett’s channel at 21.9 million and Rogan’s at 21.2 million. The result came less than two weeks after Bartlett’s team claimed the lead.

Shamani said: “22 million subscribers is an incredible milestone, but what excites me more is knowing that millions of people across the world share that ambition.” He added: “We’re still just getting started. My ambition is to build Figuring Out into a global media institution.”

How quickly did the channel close the gap?

ThoughtLeaders’ daily snapshots support the company’s count. Its chart covers November 12, 2025 to November 12, 2026, and shows 14.0 million subscribers on January 1 and 22.0 million on November 12. The channel crossed 20 million on October 23.

It moved ahead of Rogan on November 5 and passed Bartlett on November 12. In the 30 days through November 12, Figuring Out added 2.2 million subscribers, versus 1.4 million for Bartlett and 100,000 for Rogan.

YouTube rounds public counts to three significant figures, so the roughly 100,000-subscriber lead over Bartlett sits within the displayed rounding range. The release also said Figuring Out added 8 million subscribers during 2026. The lead is real, but too narrow to treat as a decisive audience gap.

What do the subscriber numbers actually measure?

Not across both rivals. ThoughtLeaders recorded about 114 million views for Figuring Out in the latest 30-day window, against 124 million for “The Diary of a CEO” and 44 million for “The Joe Rogan Experience.” The show’s lifetime view total also grew by about 1 billion since January 1, versus 906 million for Bartlett and 405 million for Rogan.

The release separately claimed 1.4 billion monthly views across platforms and said international audiences account for 22% of the channel’s YouTube subscribers. It did not identify the platforms or accounts behind the larger figure or provide a country-by-country audience breakdown.

Varun Mayya, an Indian creator, has described fan pages for the show run by small teams of clippers across 10 to 20 pages. Such networks may account for part of the difference between the channels, though the release does not quantify their contribution. Subscriber totals describe channel size, not current reach.

Bartlett’s November 2 claim came from a FlightStory comparison across shows on YouTube’s U.S. Top 100 podcast chart. FlightStory produces “The Diary of a CEO”; its comparison put the show at 21.3 million subscribers and Rogan at 21.2 million. Shamani’s release calls Figuring Out YouTube’s most-subscribed podcast but does not explain how it built its comparison set.

YouTube’s podcast chart ranks shows by watch time and excludes clip and Shorts playlists. Subscriber counts cover the entire channel, including those uploads, so the two measures do not describe the same exposure.

For buyers, the subscriber lead offers a headline, not a reliable guide to campaign reach or pricing. A subscriber crown and a podcast-chart crown answer different questions.

Not necessarily in earnings terms. Forbes ranked Rogan the highest-paid podcaster of 2026 with an estimated $82 million, citing more than 80 million monthly downloads and views. ThoughtLeaders says Rogan’s YouTube channel added 600,000 subscribers this year, while much of his audience listens through Spotify and other audio apps.

Subscriber totals say little about revenue, audience fit or sponsor value. Practitioners should compare recent views, watch time, verified audience geography and non-YouTube reach before shifting budgets. For advertisers, public subscriber rank is a weak proxy for media value.

What changes with the WME deal?

Entrepreneur Shamani signed with WME in October 2026, and WME now represents him across all territories outside India. No specific deals under the agreement have been disclosed.

He launched the podcast in 2020 from Indore and has expanded Figuring Out Media into a media and education company with more than 120 employees, including the Figuring Out Academy for emerging creators. Brand partners include Levi’s and ASUS.

This year’s guests included French President Emmanuel Macron, Andrew Huberman, Scott Galloway and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. According to the release, Altman said on the show that India had overtaken the United States as ChatGPT’s largest market. The company describes the show as a gateway between India and the wider world.

Still undisclosed are revenue and a full country breakdown beyond the 22% international share. The agency deal broadens Shamani’s commercial reach, but its payoff remains unquantified; the next test is whether Figuring Out can sustain watch-time growth, disclose clearer audience data and announce specific deals made through WME.