That feeling eventually wears off. One former Apex worker, a 32-year-old who lives in the maid’s quarters of a house with eight roommates, says years of uncertainty have left him worn out. “How are you supposed to plan for your future if your job has an expiration date?” he says. He’s a California native who moved to San Francisco over a decade ago, got a master’s degree, and internalized Silicon Valley’s brand of optimism. But that evaporated at Apple’s so-called black site. “It sounds good when you say you work at Apple, but when you’re not being paid the same amount, and you’re not treated the same way, it gets old quickly,” he says. “I don’t see why they don’t just hire someone and give them a stake in the company.”