The fact that she was at Caltech (and then MIT) alone is an indication that she is objectively superior to people like me though, and I have little hope of achieving even a fraction of that sort of success. I can't even get an interview at companies like Stripe because of my school, for instance.

I have worked with lizf (well, we worked in similar roles, but in different teams, for the same company). My sum total of university accolades are "2 terms of evening courses in electronics", "two terms of philosophy", and "just short of a third of a Master in computer science & engineering".

I dropped getting a full degree, instead deciding to go back to the industry and working (I'd spent 3 years in the industry working before I went to Uni, and having money again sounded like an excellent idea).

Now, that was me working myself up, as it were, through a variety of jobs (more on the "run things" than "write things" side, but theres a lot of "write things" involved in running things in a scalable fashion), with a few actual dev jobs along the line.

Would I be able to get my CV in front of someone at Stripe? Honestly, don't know. If all they look at is schools, I suspect my chances are vastly lower than yours. If they look at previous job history? Probably, yes.

At this point, it seems to me that the main blocker for you is depression, it MAY be worth consulting a professional about that.

This seems like some sort of schtick you’re running on here, I think.

In what sense?