Thanks for the honest assessment Paul! It seems like I am advised to set my bar lower after each successive evaluation I receive... but better to receive it now before it's too late.
I have a couple quick followup questions:
You mentioned that my career focus is "interesting" -- my assumption was that "person with tech interest hoping to create a tech startup" would be a fairly common story... is that not the case? I was planning on focusing on differentiating myself from candidates with similar goals, specifically "business" guys with limited real tech know-how and pure engineers.
Would you consider any of the schools I listed or you suggested a "safety" for me? If not, what would you suggest?
Thanks for the all the help.