Where to learn what matters
Community recommendations this week spotlight 3Blue1Brown for math fundamentals, Andrej Karpathy and StatQuest for ML theory, Aladdin Persson for PyTorch/coding, plus a Stanford CS336 course on language modeling — and a stark pay gap reminder: architects (transformers/GPUs/RL builders) can command ~$500k vs. $150k for API‑only roles. ( )
The visual-mathematics YouTube channel behind high-production animated explanations reaches over 8 million subscribers and hosts dedicated playlists on linear algebra and neural networks useful for mathematical foundations. (youtube.com) A hands‑on lecture series by a former director of AI at a major EV company walks through "neural networks from scratch" including a multi‑hour "let's build GPT" walkthrough and accompanying notebooks. (karpathy.ai) A long‑running statistics channel with roughly 1.5 million subscribers offers compact, topic‑by‑topic breakdowns of core ML and inference methods that are commonly cited in graduate coursework. (youtube.com) A PyTorch‑focused educator publishes an extensive YouTube tutorial series plus a public GitHub "Machine‑Learning‑Collection" repository with end‑to‑end PyTorch examples, and the channel metrics run in the tens of thousands of subscribers. (youtube.com) Stanford’s "Language Modeling from Scratch" course (CS336) is offered with a staff that includes well‑known faculty and a cap on enrollment because the syllabus covers pretraining, transformer construction, and high compute exercises. (cs336.stanford.edu) Compensation data collected on Levels.fyi shows top AI research and engineering packages at leading labs frequently reach mid‑six‑figure to seven‑figure total compensation depending on level, with research‑scientist listings often reporting median total packages well above $700k at the highest levels. (levels.fyi) Market surveys and job‑site aggregates for API developers and prompt‑engineering roles show median base pay in the low‑to‑mid six figures is uncommon, with many sources reporting averages or medians in the roughly $80k–$130k range and specialized senior contractor rates or rare equity deals pushing totals higher. (salary.com) Public reporting and filings note that equity and stock grants are a major component of top‑tier AI packages and have materially increased headline totals at some labs in recent years, pushing advertised "total compensation" figures substantially above base salary. (qz.com)
