I published a book on AI. a.co/d/7q4IbZd

My grandbaby isn’t just talking about leadership—she’s living it. As President of her high school’s Black Student Union, she organized a holiday service project to wrap gifts for underserved kids. Leadership rooted in empathy is the kind that scales. Proud is an understatement.

Why pay yo talk with me directly when you can chat with my digital twin? virtual.thectoadvisor.com

Why pay for my advisory services when you can get it for free? Https://virtual.thectoadvisor.com

I'll be hiring my first AI Agent this week. I'm not an analyst, but it will be one. We'll see if it can keep its job.

Announcing The CTO Advisor's Guide to VMware Alternatives - What type of Software-defined Data Center customer are you? - Can you reasonably migrate within your defined period of time? - What gaps do you need to fill? - What are the products for each of your path? us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Nice webinar session on VMware Cloud Foundation... The #vCommunity came with their questions! Well worth my time. If you want to catch this on replay - us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I built another thing. My AI-powered RSS Reader that covers roughly 17 of the largest enterprise IT vendors' blogs. cto-scanner.web.app

Did I just waste two weeks building #VirtualCTOAdvisor when I could have just paid Delphi.AI for a strikingly similar solution? I unpack the build vs. buy decision in the modern enterprise. ctoadvisor.substack.com/p/build-vs-s...

After a coding sprint, I finally got Vertex AI Search to index 7,000 pieces of my IT insights. Now it’s wired back into virtual.thectoadvisor.com. 🚀 This is just phase one—next comes smarter retrieval, context-aware answers, and deeper advisory automation. 👉 What would you want Keith to answer?

I'm listening to Kendrick and Vibe-coding at #VMwareExplore. If you see my cowboy hat bobbing up and down, you know I'm in that zone. - They ain't talkin about nuthin

Will this ever be a place to talk enterprise tech?

How long did it take me to fine-tune Gemini Flash 2.5 Pro on my 470 blog posts?

Webinar: A CTO's Guide to VMware Alternatives When: September 10th, 2025 11:00 AM CDT us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I built my first public facing app. And it may take my job. virtual.thectoadvisor.com

We are officially a week out from my VCF 9 webinar. I've submitted all the questions to @vmware.bsky.social that I need answered to create the content. I just have this little thing called #VMwareExplore in my way. Register us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Oh... That's why Google Cloud Vertex AI has a Prompt Management system. open.substack.com/pub/cloudeve...

The SMB VMware vacuum is real. Broadcom’s exit left a crater—and now every vendor with a hypervisor or container runtime is rushing in. SMBs aren’t choosing—they’re freezing. Too many options, not enough clarity. It’s not just a tech decision anymore; it’s survival strategy.

Me: Why did you fabricate a reference that's not in the dataset I provided? ChatGPT: My bad. This is the OpenAI custom GPT builder experience. But AGI is right around the corner.

Should you go all-in on VMware Cloud Foundation 9 or pick, pick, and choose what parts to adopt, or skip it altogether? I'm conducting a webinar where I break down what's important and to which type of customer. August 28th 1:00 PM CDT Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

This post has been a long time in the making... I consistently get the question about my thoughts about VMware alternatives. Here's my response: thectoadvisor.com/blog/2025/08...

Rebuilt my basement stairs once. Got to the joist… had no idea how to connect it. I hit the same problem in AI. Told my custom GPT: “Always search all datasets.” It didn’t. The flaw wasn’t in the plan — it was in what the plan forgot to plan for. Full story → open.substack.com/pub/ctoadvis...

Started building KeithGPT. First thought: “Oh crap, this might kill billable hours.” Second thought: “Wait… it’s actually leveling up my clients before we even start.” The right clients show up sharper. The work goes deeper. The value climbs. Turns out, the “threat” was just a filter.

Hat tip to @stevendickens3.bsky.social for putting AWS EVS back on my radar. This isn’t just a new VMC-on-AWS service — it’s AWS’s move in Broadcom’s VCF-everywhere strategy and a bid to hold ground against Oracle, Google & Azure. Here’s my take on what it means: thectoadvisor.com/blog/2025/08...

I shrugged at the AWS EVS announcement. Another VMware-in-AWS SKU? Sure. But dig deeper: it’s less about cost savings and more about Broadcom pushing VCF everywhere — across public, private, and even inside hyperscalers’ own data centers. And that changes the game.

I re-launched cloudeveryday.dev as daily insights into cloud platform engineering.

🚀 New: Ask Keith Townsend – The CTO Advisor 🚀 An AI trained only on my published blogs, articles, podcasts & talks. Get real answers on enterprise IT, hybrid cloud & AI infra — all based on what I’ve actually said. chatgpt.com/g/g-uzALHlat...

The value isn't your skill. The value is how you use your skill to achieve outcomes. Price on the outcome, not on the skill.

You want authority? Show up. You want authenticity? Show up. Being seen as an active voice in your community of practice isn’t magic—it’s participation. Ask questions. Answer them. Share what matters to your peers. It’s not complicated. It’s consistent.

Imagine your Enterprise Architect tosses the blueprints, grabs a keyboard, and says, “I’ve got this.” That’s me with GPT-5. AI isn’t just an enabler — it’s the cure for imposter syndrome you didn’t know you had.

AI platform teams: it's not Dell vs AWS. It’s knowing when to optimize for abstraction (SageMaker) and when to lean into control (Dell AI Factory + Private Cloud Automation). Most orgs need both. Our breakdown → www.cloudeveryday.dev/p/the-golden...

Trying to unwind while starting a new business is exceptionally difficult.

1/ I’ve been hearing: “You’re publishing a LOT lately. What’s the secret?” So let me break down exactly how I’m using AI—specifically a custom ChatGPT model—to scale my blog post output without outsourcing my voice. 🧵

AI won’t kill analyst firms—it’ll make truth a premium product. When everyone's feeding on recycled content, those doing real research become invaluable. The firms may shrink, but their insights? Priceless.

www.cloudeveryday.dev/p/oxides-100... Oxide’s $100M Raise Is a Signal: Cloud-Native Experiences Are Ready to Run Anywhere

It's official, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro is now my favorite LLM. Ask it - How much would it take to hire "Keith Townsend, the CTO Advisor," as an FTE?

How do I make money? I inform enterprise tech buyers. That’s my primary job. Because of that trust, I bring buyers and sellers together. Buyers get real conversations and peer connections—on my dime. Sellers pay for the chance to listen, learn, and refine their GTM.

Google shipped a CLI for AI. The Gemini AI CLI isn’t a toy — it’s terminal-native, context-aware, and finally governable. Why it matters for platform teams: 🔐 Works with RBAC, Git hooks, telemetry 📁 Reads your project structure 🧠 Runs memory-based agents open.substack.com/pub/cloudeve...

Who wins in a real-world coding showdown: 🛠️ A seasoned dev (no AI) 🤖 A peer using Copilot, Claude, etc. Same skills. Same challenge. One goes solo, one goes augmented. It’s time to stop debating AI in dev—let’s test it. 🔗 ctoadvisor.substack.com/p/the-ultima...

🚧 My latest thoughts on what AWS Kiro signals: It's not about the product, but the shift to #SpecFirst & #AIFirst. AI needs guardrails from the start, embedded in your IDE. This changes everything for platform teams. Time to build your own opinionated stack. 🛠️ open.substack.com/pub/cloudeve...

Funny thing—what’s getting the most traction with vendors lately? Not net-new leads. Not feel-good feedback. It’s takeout opps. The chance to sit in front of buyers they didn’t win and hear the truth. That’s the magic of the Buyer Room. And it’s moving real deals forward.

1/ Thinking of becoming an independent consultant? The real work starts long before your LinkedIn announcement. You don’t build a pipeline after you quit your job—you build it today. Start talking to peers. What’s keeping them up at night? What problems are they solving—or failing to solve?

Who reads TheCTOAdvisor.com? 84% are from real-world enterprises (Honeywell, United Airlines, Humana) dealing daily with complex tech infrastructure. 16% are enterprise tech vendors (Dell, HPE, VMware), quietly listening in to hear what's resonating with their customers. That's an influential mix.

Everything can be an AI platform if marketing tries hard enough.

I create content that impresses the real decision-makers—those who buy, deploy, and manage enterprise tech. Why? Their trust sparks vendor investment. Buyer insights become actionable content that vendors leverage to win buyers. That's the flywheel behind The CTO Advisor & TAB.

Is OpenShift an AI platform? Red Hat says yes. Most enterprise teams I talk to aren’t so sure. Today’s CloudEveryday.dev post breaks down what OpenShift AI actually offers—and what’s still missing if you're trying to enable developers across hybrid environments. open.substack.com/pub/cloudeve...

PowerEdge Saga: Episode III Thought I was done. 🚫 No video after GPU install 🧃 Dusted off the ancient 10/100 switch 🧩 Hacked Java into a modern browser 💻 Finally remoted into the box... Only to be defeated by the one proprietary cable I don't have. Who designed this plot twist—J.J. Abrams?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a humble home lab or a $30K GPU cluster—your deployment will always be delayed by a missing, wrong, or too-short cable. Always. Build in slack. Budget for chaos. Terraform can’t fix physics.

1/ Broadcom is positioning VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 as the “unified” platform for modern private cloud. VMs ✅ Kubernetes ✅ Frictionless consumption ✅ But here’s what I’m watching for... 🧵