I don't see why this is an either/or decision? Without a firm understanding of probability then good luck interpreting or fitting a model. Without a firm under

I don't see why this is an either/or decision? Without a firm understanding of probability then good luck interpreting or fitting a model. Without a firm understanding of linear algebra good luck implementing or using an algorithm. And hell, if you have a streaming algorithm you probably no longer need linear algebra but to grasp either the probabilistic or geometric interpretations you'll probably need calculus.