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How AI & LLMs Work: A Fast-Track Crash Course for Busy Professionals

4.9 (9)

·

10 Days

·

Cohort-based Course

Master AI Concepts with a Real LLM Implemented Entirely in a Spreadsheet. No Complex Math. Just Clarity.

Hosted by

Ishan Anand

Cofounder, CTO, VP Product. MIT EECS. Stop reading about AI. Start building it!

Course overview

Skip the mountains of prep work and learn how AI works in just a few hours

"Ishan takes a black box, rips it apart to understandable compartments, and clearly communicates what is going on. Highly recommend." - Class Participant


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Why This Course Stands Out:


You already know how vital AI is to your career—it's in every conversation, project, and strategy session. But diving into AI feels daunting with limited time for self-study or complex programming.


That’s where this course comes in. Skip the endless prep work and gain an intuitive, hands-on understanding of AI and transformers in just a few hours—without needing an advanced degree.


No other course offers such an interactive, fast, and in-depth technical understanding of AI using an actual GPT-2 model, all using an easy-to-learn spreadsheet interface.


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Perfect for Busy STEM Professionals:

Whether you're a developer, technical manager, or executive, this course demystifies AI and teaches you exactly how Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-2 work, with no prerequisites beyond a STEM background.


It’s ideal for:


Software/Web Developers seeking an easy introduction to machine learning.


Science & Tech Professionals navigating AI transformations in their fields.


Technical Sales/Marketing crafting messaging for AI products.


Product/Project Managers overseeing LLM-powered solutions.


Executives/Leaders guiding AI strategy in their organizations.


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What You’ll Learn:

Using a unique spreadsheet implementation of GPT-2 (the predecessor to ChatGPT), we’ll break down each model component with crystal-clear explanations. In just a few sessions, you’ll be able to:


Understand how LLMs work—as quickly as possible.


Explain every key component—tokenization, embeddings, attention, and more.


Gain AI literacy—so you can confidently lead and manage AI-driven teams.


Build a foundation for further AI projects—and even more advanced learning.


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Why Spreadsheets?

You don’t need to be a coder or a calculus expert to understand AI—just the right approach. This course uses an innovative, no-code, spreadsheet-based method to teach LLMs. It's fast, interactive, and designed for busy professionals like you.


By breaking down complex AI principles into easy-to-follow spreadsheet exercises, you’ll gain a lasting, foundational understanding of how large language models work. This is knowledge you can carry across into any model, any programming language, and any project.


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Hands-On Learning, No Programming Required:


By the end of the course, you’ll have a working, detailed understanding of how transformers power LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Llama. Plus, you'll have a spreadsheet tool you can explore and tweak to deepen your understanding further.


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See it for Yourself:


Still unsure? Watch the FREE lightning lesson:

"Inside the Brain of an LLM: How it Works in 30 Minutes" to see how accessible AI learning can be.


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Join the Community of Learners:


• “I could’ve read 20 papers on this and not gotten nearly the understanding I got from this hands-on course.”

Class Participant from Adobe


• “Highly recommend this course for anyone wanting to build a foundation in LLMs. Ishan’s interactive approach makes complex concepts incredibly clear.”

Matt, Business Intelligence Analyst


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Practical Details:


Course Access: All sessions are recorded and available to stream after the course concludes, so you’ll never miss a thing.

Reimbursement: Your company may cover this course if you're building or transitioning into AI at work.


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New for this cohort! We've dropped the requirement for Excel. We have a browser based alternative. Some exercises may use Google Sheets and/or Python.

Who is this course for

01

Executives, engineering managers, and product managers leading and coordinating technical AI teams leveraging LLMs

02

Developers without formal training in machine learning that want to quickly understand the LLM technology in their projects

03

A gentle introduction to LLMs for professionals pivoting their career to AI from traditional software engineering or other STEM fields

04

Anyone who can read a spreadsheet that is motivated and deeply interested in how the next wave of computing works

What you’ll get out of this course

Understand how LLMs work as quickly as possible

This course breaks down complex AI concepts into easy-to-follow steps using Excel, making it accessible for anyone with a STEM background.

Recognize and explain every component of an LLM

Precisely understand in detail the architecture and function of the GPT2 model, including tokenization, embeddings, attention, multi-layer perceptron, and layernorm.

AI Literacy for managing technical teams

You'll gain a solid understanding of how LLMs function, enabling you to confidently engage with engineers and technical stakeholders.

Prepare yourself for further exploration, projects, or coursework in artificial intelligence

Build a foundation that equips you with the essential knowledge to explore advanced AI topics, undertake AI projects, or pursue further coursework.

This course includes

5 interactive live sessions

Lifetime access to course materials

In-depth lessons

Direct access to instructor

Projects to apply learnings

Guided feedback & reflection

Private community of peers

Course certificate upon completion

Maven Satisfaction Guarantee

This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.

Course syllabus

Week 1

Dec 4—Dec 8

    Dec

    4

    How LLMs Work Class Session 1: Introduction & Tokenization

    Wed 12/47:30 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)

    Welcome and Course Logistics

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    Intro to R1C1 Notation in Excel

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    Introduction to AI & ML

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    Tokenization (Byte Pair Encoding)

    0 items

    Dec

    6

    How LLMs Work Class Session 2: Embeddings

    Fri 12/67:30 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)

    Token Embeddings

    0 items

    Position Embeddings

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Week 2

Dec 9—Dec 13

    Dec

    9

    How LLMs Work Class Session 3: Neural Networks and Backpropagation

    Mon 12/97:30 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)

    Neural Networks & Backpropagation

    0 items

    Dec

    11

    How LLMs Work Class Session 4: Multi-head attention

    Wed 12/117:30 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)

    Multi-headed Attention

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    Dec

    13

    How LLMs Work Class Session 5: Putting it all together

    Fri 12/137:30 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)

    Layer Norm

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    Residual Connections

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    Language Head

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    ChatGPT vs. GPT2

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4.9 (9 ratings)

What students are saying

What people are saying

        Ishan takes a black box, rips it apart to understandable compartments, and clearly communicates what is going on.
Joe

Joe

CFO
        I would recommend this course to anyone wanting to build a foundation in LLMs.
Matt

Matt

Business Intelligence Analyst
        I could've read 20 papers on this and not gotten nearly the intuitive understanding as working hands on with the course materials as you explained the concepts.
Participant from Adobe

Participant from Adobe

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How AI & LLMs Work: A Fast-Track Crash Course for Busy Professionals

Frequently Asked Questions

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How AI & LLMs Work: A Fast-Track Crash Course for Busy Professionals