its depend on what domain you are interested in. for some domain progress is so fast books are lagging 10 years behind so you need to read article (also its tough to find good article).

This book is all you need https://probml.github.io/pml-book/book1.html

For me re-reading some book twice/thrice or reading multiple book/courses on same topic make it click. Sometime I think it click but my understanding is totally wrong, talking to people and solving problem help me find the gap.

Totally agree, learning geometry or linear algebra through AR/VR would be so easy and intuitive

I always get confused who the audience is for these kind of books?

For advanced reader this is really shallow, for beginners its really advanced (who really want to read 543 page book as beginner).

Simply put, there are many people who are neither "beginners" nor "advanced". There is a section of the book titled Audience which reads

> Bayes Rules! brings the power of Bayes to advanced undergraduate students and comparably trained practitioners. Accordingly, the book is neither written at the graduate level nor is it meant to be a first introduction to the field of statistics.

I fell for this bullshit before i read the last line "This is what we have designed the Bradfield Computer Science Intensive to be."

I think it’s too much simplifying ML. If features are so easy to find yes you can write a rule based system and it works. But most of the real life problem is not easy.

First define what is a "working AI" even mean Be careful AI is not an iPhone app you will not find any funding for BS in this env.

I don't understand OP, so you have problem with leetcode, and you also have a problem with hire and fire culture (most of these companies don't ask leetcode) so what do you want free money? And how you decided just after meeting "people who are really good programmers"?