Morning Coffee: The partying 25-year-old college dropout making millions. Bankers sleeping in cubicles is over

If you're inspired by "vest and rest" millionaires - 30-something tech entrepreneurs who have sold their firm to Facebook or Google and are creaming the profits working six-hour days - there is another option for big bucks that allows you to stick closer to banking: bitcoin.

The crypto-currency is much-hyped, but take a little inspiration from Jeremy Gardner, a 25-year-old bitcoin millionaire splitting his time between sourcing investments for a VC firm called Blockchain Capital and...partying. Gardner, who dropped out of college twice, works part-time, is a self-made millionaire and told Business Insider that his biggest expense was "alcohol".

Gardner is a bitcoin evangelist, and it's easy to see why. In 2008, returning from a safari holiday, Gardner told Business Insider that he'd checked Twitter to realise that the spiralling value of the cryptocurrency meant that his net worth doubled in five days: "That, to me, was nuts," he said.

"By dedicating my life to crypto assets and blockchain technology, I've made more money than I would have ever expected to make in my entire life — by a long shot," he said. Gardner now works for the VC firm for no salary but instead gets carry, namely a share of the profits the firm makes on investments he advised on.

Gardner lives in a three-storey house in San Francisco with other technology entrepreneurs known as Crypto Castle. "Over a half-dozen people in the time they've lived in my house have become millionaires as a result of crypto," Gardner said.

And the alcohol spend, he says, is more about helping others have a good time: "As I've seen my wealth grow, it's important to me that I give back to this industry that's given me so much. So when we go to conferences, I'll bring a bunch of people out and buy bottles at the club, pay for dinner and stuff."

Bitcoin is now above $4k. Too late to get in? Gardner, obviously, thinks not: he expects it to reach $10k in five to 10 years.

Separately, the days of Barclays interns attempting to catch a little rest by sleeping in a toilet cubicle are over. Forget facetime in the office, Barclays now wants to know exactly when you're at your desk. The bank has just installed sensors under the desks of its bankers in London to assess when how long they spend at their desk, according to Bloomberg.

Bank employees were not extensively told about their installation and it appears to have many thinking that Big Brother is watching them. The same thing happened last year when the Telegraph installed them under the desks of its journalists, prompting jokes about the dangers of long toilet breaks. But, like the newspaper, Barclays has insisted its not about productivity, but about efficiency.

"The sensors aren’t monitoring people or their productivity; they are assessing office space usage,” the bank told Bloomberg in an emailed statement. “This sort of analysis helps us to reduce costs, for example, managing energy consumption, or identifying opportunities to further adopt flexible work environments.”

Meanwhile: 

Goldman Sachs in Australia has launched a programme to hire people who applied before and didn't make it, or spent two years in other industries and decided it wasn't for them (The Australian)

The difference between working for Goldman and a hedge fund? Politics. (Business Insider)

Frankfurt and Dublin's red carpet may need to stay out for a while: "Most banks are looking to minimise expense and disruption by relocating as little as possible in the first instance." (Reuters)

London's tech firms, and talent, are thinking twice about staying in the UK after Brexit (Guardian)

Dublin might be missing out on Brexit gains (Bloomberg)

Bank of England staff could strike again after being offered just a 1% pay rise (Telegraph)

Investment banking sales jobs - all about corporate clients (Tabb Group)

The SEC has dropped its investigation into Javier Martín-Artajo and Julien Grout, the two J.P. Morgan traders accused of hiding J.P. Morgan's London Whale losses (Financial Times)

Carl Icahn has quit the White House too because of potential conflicts of interest (Bloomberg)

Blackstone's Stephen A. Schwarzman is proving to be one of Trump's closest allies in business (NY Times)

The five hour commute of office workers (NY Times)

Women are quitting Google because of racial discrimination (Guardian)

Silicon Valley execs try to defy death: “Rather than dying at age 81, catheterised and demented in your bed, you might die at 106 on the tennis court, while winning. Or, as my co-founder likes to say, maybe killed by a jealous lover at 113.” (The Times)

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com