Steve Jobs was infamous for his temper, with a famous story about him blowing up at the MobileMe team following a rocky rollout of that service in 2008.
However, Jobs isn’t the only employee at Apple with a short fuse. A profile in The Information studies Kim Vorrath, Apple’s vice president in charge of “program management” for both iOS and OS X. She supervises Apple’s thorough testing process to discover bugs and is the final arbiter of deadlines to ensure that software updates come out on time.
One story in particular, relayed by Business Insider, tells of Vorrath’s displeasure when she found out a co-worker was leaving work early before the launch of the first iPhone in 2007.
Ms. Vorrath, who has worked on all seven iOS releases, generally operates by asking lots of questions of engineers, sticking to the facts and getting them to explain in plain English why a particular feature should be included in the operating system. She’s easy to get along with, say former colleagues, who recall playfully mocking her 1990s feathered hairstyle and late 1980s fashion sense. But she isn’t known for chitchat and has been known to “blow up” on occasion when people miss deadlines or make excuses, colleagues say.
During a tense time before the first release of iOS software in 2007, Ms. Vorrath grew irate when a colleague was heading home early before another marathon weekend meeting. She slammed her office door so hard that the door knob broke, and she locked herself in. Mr. Forstall grabbed a baseball bat to try to break her out, people who worked at Apple at the time recall.
The Information says Vorrath has been working at Apple since 1987, starting as an intern and eventually becoming chief of staff for Scott Forstall. Now, she is said to be working directly beneath Apple executive Craig Federighi, who is in charge of Apple’s software engineering teams.
