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‘Subway Takes’ and the Future of YouTube TV

The Experience Strategy Podcast

Release Date: 05/15/2026

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Kareem Rahma built Subway Takes into a hit with 2 million Instagram followers, a metro card as a microphone, and a format that runs in seconds. Now he’s walking away from a CNN deal to put his next show Keep the Meter Running on YouTube — because YouTube, in his words, is where the next Bourdain and the next Lena Dunham will come from. In this episode, Joe, Dave, and Aransas dig into what Rahma’s bet actually means for experience strategy. The conversation moves from short-form content design, to the death of “Gen Z YouTube” as a useful category, to why every brand needs to rethink where and how it reaches customers in the micro-moments that now define modern media consumption.

100% agree or 100% disagree — you decide.

What We’re Talking About This Episode

  • Rahma’s CNN walk-away. Why he turned down a legacy media deal to own his independence on YouTube, and what that signals about creator economics now.

  • YouTube as television, not social media. YouTube’s monthly share of TV watch-time hit ~12% in 2025 per Nielsen — higher than any network or streamer. Rahma’s read: “this is a TV screen, but right now no one’s making television for it.”

  • Subway Takes as situational design. The subway isn’t a backdrop. It’s the situation. The format, the duration, the point of view, the 100% agree / 100% disagree script — all of it is built around a specific consumer moment.

  • The Lorne Michaels frame. Rahma isn’t playing the virality slot machine. He’s building a show. A nice change from all of the influencer content out there.

  • Why “Gen Z YouTube” is a lazy frame. Dave pushes back on the article’s generational framing. His adult kids watch YouTube over Netflix. So does Aransas. So do millions of others. The situation around the screen has changed.

Why This Matters for Experience Strategy

Three themes worth pulling out:

1. Content is situational, not channel-based. Dave traces this back to a 2015 Collaboratives conversation with a major media company about designing content for the 30-second, 90-second, two-minute windows that now define daily consumption. A decade later, that conversation is finally mainstream. The companies still organizing around channel rather than situation are the ones being lapped.

2. POV is the differentiator. Rahma’s 100% agree / 100% disagree technique forces you to take strong point of view in every interaction. Brands that hedge — that try to be all things to all customers — are getting outpaced by creators who plant a flag.

3. The CNN ticker is the OG infinite scroll. Joe drops a sharp observation mid-episode: 24-hour news already pioneered the segment-plus-chyron structure we now call short-form. The need hasn’t changed. The means of meeting it has. Which connects to a Clayton Christensen line Dave only partly agrees with — and to Stone Mantel’s view that situations themselves do change, not just the jobs underneath them.

Memorable Moments

  • Joe’s Transformation Economy book made Thinkers50’s top 10 management books of 2026.

  • Aransas on the invisible load of AI: ideas start faster, but humans still have to finish them — and the cognitive load is going up, not down.

  • Dave on what Cargo has done to his wardrobe: black t-shirt to medium gray. Things have changed.

  • The unhoused-person-falling-in-your-lap test for quintessential New York.

  • Joe’s Easter Bunny / Cargo joke. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Quick References

Join the Collaboratives

Dave’s working the phones — it’s that time of year. The Collaboratives is the Stone Mantel + Cargo partnership exploring situational markets as a growth mechanism in a world where parity is everywhere and growth is harder than ever. Free market analyses are my gift to anyone who joins. Workshop coming May 21.

Send me a note if you’d like to be invited to the May 21st Workshop.