Keith Townsend @CTOAdvisor
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thectoadvisor.com
Keith Townsend @CTOAdvisor
@thectoadvisor.com
6.3K followers 350 following 750 posts
Principal The CTO Advisor LLC
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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.
I built another thing. My AI-powered RSS Reader that covers roughly 17 of the largest enterprise IT vendors' blogs. cto-scanner.web.app
CTO Signal Scanner
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...
Build vs. SaaS: Lessons from Building Virtual CTO Advisor
Did I waste time and money building Virtual CTO Advisor?
ctoadvisor.substack.com
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?
Virtual CTO Advisor
virtual.thectoadvisor.com
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
I’d welcome the bias as long as the conversation happens in the open.
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?
It’s a great opportunity for anyone that has a VMware alternative story.
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.
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...
The Joist, the GPT, and Why Good Plans Fail
When the Flaw Isn’t in the Plan — It’s in What the Plan Forgot to Plan For
open.substack.com
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...
AWS EVS: A Step Toward VCF Everywhere - The CTO Advisor
Broadcom has ended sales of VMC on AWS. This isn’t [...]
thectoadvisor.com