Business · REPORTING
Raj Shamani's Figuring Out passes Diary of a CEO and Joe Rogan in YouTube subscribers, trade outlets report
Trade reports on November 13 put Raj Shamani's channel ahead on subscribers by a narrow margin. On 30-day views, Diary of a CEO is still ahead.
Published
Raj Shamani's Figuring Out has passed Diary of a CEO and The Joe Rogan Experience in YouTube subscribers, according to Podnews and Net Influencer reports published November 13.
Podnews counted 22.1 million for Raj, 21.9 million for Steven Bartlett and 21.1 million for Rogan. The show's own press release, as Net Influencer relays it, said 22 million, 21.9 million and 21.2 million.
The two outlets disagree by 100,000 on Rogan. The lead over Bartlett is of a similar size, so small differences matter here.
A narrow lead
The gap over Bartlett depends on the source: 200,000 on Podnews' counts (22.1 million against 21.9 million) and 100,000 on the press-release counts as Net Influencer relays them (22 million against 21.9 million). Net Influencer also notes that YouTube rounds public counts to three significant figures.
So treat "number one" with care. What the reports support is that Raj is ahead of Bartlett by a narrow margin on public counts, as of November 12 to 13. The reports do not show how long that lead will last.
The climb is the real story
Net Influencer cites ThoughtLeaders data: 14.0 million subscribers on January 1, 22.0 million on November 12. The channel passed 20 million on October 23, Rogan on November 5 and Bartlett on November 12.
Over the last 30 days, ThoughtLeaders counts 2.2 million new subscribers for Raj, 1.4 million for Bartlett and about 100,000 for Rogan. I find that last number more interesting than the crown. Rogan is still adding subscribers, just slowly.
Subscribers are the cheap number
Views tell a different story. In the same 30 days, Net Influencer reports 114 million views for Raj, 124 million for Diary of a CEO and 44 million for Rogan.
Since January 1, it lists Raj at about one billion views, Bartlett at 906 million and Rogan at 405 million.
Read that again. On 30-day views, Bartlett is still ahead of the channel that just passed him. A subscriber is one tap. A view is somebody's time. I would rather be the show people actually watch.
Where the money is
Subscribers are not revenue. Net Influencer says Figuring Out Media has more than 120 staff and has not disclosed its revenue. It also cites Forbes, which ranks Rogan top-paid in 2026 at an estimated $82 million.
Podnews reports a WME signing, and Net Influencer says it came in October, outside India. That is the part I would watch. If a talent agency is selling this channel to brands, the subscriber milestone is a sales slide.
None of this takes anything away from the growth. It is real and fast.
But a crown by a narrow margin, while Diary of a CEO is still ahead on 30-day views and Raj's earnings are undisclosed, tells me who is growing fastest. It does not tell me who is winning. Ask me again in January.