India's 'Figuring Out With Raj Shamani' Passes The Diary of a CEO and Joe Rogan as YouTube's Most-Subscribed Podcast

Figuring Out with Raj Shamani has become the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube with about 22 million subscribers, passing Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO and The Joe Rogan Experience, according to a release published Nov. 13, 2026. The India-based show says it has added 8 million YouTube subscribers this year, two weeks after Bartlett's show overtook Rogan's.

Nov 13, 2026 - 15:18

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Figuring Out with Raj Shamani, an interview podcast produced in India, has become the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube, passing Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO and The Joe Rogan Experience, according to a press release published by Podnews on Nov. 13, 2026. The release says Shamani is the first podcaster in the world to reach 22 million YouTube subscribers, ahead of The Diary of a CEO at 21.9 million and The Joe Rogan Experience at 21.2 million.

The trade newsletter Podnews reported the same day that Figuring Out had 22.1 million subscribers, compared with 21.9 million for Bartlett and 21.1 million for Rogan. YouTube analytics service vidIQ listed the channel at 22.2 million subscribers as of Nov. 13, with roughly 2.67 billion total views across more than 2,600 videos, and a gain of about 2.3 million subscribers over the previous 28 days.

A second change at the top in two weeks

The shift comes shortly after another change in the YouTube podcast rankings. Podcast News Daily reported on Nov. 2 that The Diary of a CEO had overtaken The Joe Rogan Experience to become the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube, based on publicly displayed subscriber counts for shows on YouTube's Top 100 U.S. podcast chart as of Nov. 1. That report put Bartlett's show at 21.4 million subscribers and Rogan's at 21.2 million, figures compiled by Bartlett's production company, FlightStory.

Australian trade publication Mediaweek reported The Diary of a CEO at 21.3 million subscribers on Nov. 1, and noted that YouTube rounds public counts to three significant figures, meaning the gap between closely ranked channels may be smaller or larger than the displayed numbers suggest. Mediaweek said Bartlett's channel had grown from about 14.2 million subscribers at the end of December 2025.

In its Nov. 13 story, Podcast News Daily said Shamani's rise came just two weeks after Bartlett overtook Rogan. Podcast News Daily's earlier report noted that YouTube subscriber counts are not the same as podcast downloads or overall audience consumption.

Growth in 2026

According to the Podnews press release, Figuring Out has added 8 million YouTube subscribers in 2026 alone. The release says the show now generates 1.4 billion monthly views across platforms and that international subscribers account for 22% of its YouTube subscriber base. Podcast News Daily, citing the company, said Figuring Out Media employs more than 120 people across operations that include media, distribution, education and investments.

The show was launched in 2021, Podnews reported. Guests in 2026 have included French President Emmanuel Macron, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, business professor Scott Galloway and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, according to the release, which says Altman revealed during his appearance that India had overtaken the United States as ChatGPT's largest market. Earlier guests have included Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, according to Deadline and Storyboard18.

Figuring Out is also ranked as the No. 1 podcast on Spotify in India, according to Deadline, Storyboard18 and Podcast News Daily.

WME deal and expansion plans

Deadline reported in early October that Shamani, an Indian entrepreneur, investor and author, had signed with talent agency WME in all areas. At the time, WME said Figuring Out had nearly 20 million YouTube subscribers, making it one of the biggest podcasts on the platform. Storyboard18 reported that Shamani had expanded beyond the podcast through Figuring Out Media and the Figuring Out Academy, and that he wrote the 2022 book Build, Don't Talk.

The Nov. 13 release says Shamani is expanding Figuring Out Media into a global media business to develop new commercial partnerships and reach international audiences, and that he has partnered with global brands including Levi's and ASUS.

"When I started Figuring Out in a small room in Indore, I had one obsession: understanding how the world's most extraordinary people think, what they know that the rest of us don't, and what makes them different," Shamani said in the release. "I've always believed that where you come from shouldn't determine what you get to learn or who you get to learn from."

He added: "22 million subscribers is an incredible milestone, but what excites me more is knowing that millions of people across the world share that ambition." Shamani said his goal is "to build Figuring Out into a global media institution that brings the world's most extraordinary minds, ideas, and conversations to anyone, anywhere, who wants to build an extraordinary life."

How Bartlett's show grew

The Diary of a CEO's own growth has been tied to international distribution. FlightStory said the channel generated more than 1 billion YouTube views in the first 10 months of 2026, compared with about 399 million in the same period of 2025, according to Podcast News Daily and Mediaweek. About 261 million of those views, or 23.3%, came through audio tracks in languages other than English, led by Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese and French.

Bartlett's Oct. 22 interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was recorded in Ukrainian with two human interpreters and then made available in more than 20 languages using AI voice technology, drawing more than 7 million views in its first 10 days, according to both outlets. Bartlett launched the show in 2017 as an audio diary recorded in his bedroom in Manchester, England, and began publishing regular full-length video episodes on YouTube in 2020.