Accomplished leader in the global high-tech field
Bill Karagounis is an experienced and accomplished leader in the global high-tech field. He is the Director of Program Management for Windows Operating systems at Microsoft Corporation headquarters. He is in charge of everything under the sun related to Windows, from the Insider team, Feedback Hub, to OS performance, reliability, battery life and installation. His engineering work is now used by over a billion people.
He was born to two Greek immigrants that could barely speak English in Sydney, Australia. He studied Computer Science, Organic Chemistry at the University of New South Wales.
Bill Karagounis is also product owner for the Windows Insider Program and he has experience as Sales Director for Visual Studio Tools business in Australia.
In September 2014, Microsoft introduced the new Windows 10 operating system and it invited people to try out the extremely unfinished operating system, a full year and a half before it would hit store shelves. This program was dubbed Windows Insider.
Only Microsoft employees saw the new version in the works until it was almost ready to hit store shelves. “We would go for years before we would show our product to the world,” Karagounis tells Business Insider.
Τhere are over 10 million Windows Insiders today, across Windows 10 PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
“Some people have beta testing programs,” Karagounis says. “We have more than a beta testing program; we have a whole community.”
In November 2016, Microsoft announced the Unified Update Platform (UUP). One of the biggest benefits UUP brings is a reduction in download size of build future updates by saving users the trouble of downloading an entire build of their operating system.
That feature is called differential download packages, which is a technical term for “only downloads what you need.” A differential download looks at the files already on your system and uses them to rebuild the new OS version from there.
As for his personal life, he walks his dog first thing in the morning, he loves the triple Americano from Microsoft Kitchen, the Gibson guitar, Italian food and Formula1, and his knack for mechanical operations, being pit crew for his sons’ karting sessions.