Episode #19: Entrepreneurship and the Future of Technology with a Highly Sensitive CEO
How highly sensitive leaders can shape a more mindful, human-centered future through technology and inspired vision.
Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and today’s conversation is with my good friend Marc Gamet, who joins us all the way from Bali! He’s the CEO of the technology company Slash and an HSP entrepreneur who’s reimagining what it means to lead with sensitivity in a fast-paced and technologically advanced world. Marc and I dive into what it’s like to be a highly sensitive leader in tech, how he avoids burnout while balancing his role as both a CEO and as a father, and why the future of technology can be more useful to humans than we might imagine.
So, whether you’re an HSP working in the tech industry, a creative entrepreneur, or simply someone who wants to lead with more vision and heart — this conversation will inspire you to see your sensitivity not as a hindrance, but as the very gateway to your path and purpose.
I hope you enjoy it!
Kim: Marc, thank you so much for joining me today on The Happy HSP Podcast and very warm welcome to you.
Marc: I’m very happy that you asked me actually to talk with you today. So excited for our conversation.
Kim: Same here. So, I always like to start out by asking about your journey to finding out you’re highly sensitive. What led you to find out that you were a highly sensitive person and what did that journey look like and how did that unfold for you?
Marc: Yeah, it’s quite an unusual journey because I was not really seeking for an answer to what was going on, but I’ve had two significant episodes of burnout in the past 10 years. And when I looked around and I see people doing the same things as I did, I saw them coping better with similar situations. I was wondering why, but it didn’t really lead me to the highly sensitive to the concept of highly sensitive person.
What led me is I started to wonder why I had, at that time, I used to call it a superpower, but I just like to embellish things, but I realized I could feel people’s pressure points. So, when you go through the body, you touch the skin and then many parts of our bodies have areas where if you press, it’s painful essentially. And I was able to just touch someone’s skin and just feel in their arm or their shoulder on their back. The places where if I would just push it would just make them feel a lot of pain.
And obviously I did not use it to hurt people, but I was just wondering why I was able to do that. And little by little, I think in a conversation with someone, I spoke about this, and that person said, look at the highly sensitive person concept and based on this and based on the other aspect of your life, it seems like there’s something for you to look into because it can help you, the work that has been done and highly sensitive people can help you cope better with certain things in your life that you are still trying to find solutions through. So yeah, that’s the story.
Kim: Wow. And when you said you sensed that you could just pick up on the energy before or you could feel it under the skin, I’m curious about that. What was that?
Marc: Yeah, no, when my finger touched the skin, I have a signal when it’s a point where it’s going to be painful. So, I don’t know how to explain it. And actually, what’s very strange about it is that I can do it on everyone but myself. So, I cannot, with my fingers, I can’t feel mine, but I can feel everyone else’s. So, it was like at some point, I remember there was this guy who told me, I live in Ubud in Bali. So, people tend to believe about gifts and very a bit spiritual things about our, yes, it’s a very spiritual city.
So, this person came to me saying that I had the gift, and usually gifts are something that benefit others, not ourselves. So, if we are gifted with something is something that we can serve, that we can use to serve and help others, not ourselves, probably why people who can see the future cannot do it on themselves or things like this. I’m not so sure. But that that’s how it was presented to me and not, yeah, I mean we are 12 hours different, so I cannot touch your shoulders to show you that. I can feel where the pain is, but it works every time and it’s quite interesting. Yeah.
Kim: Wow. So, you didn’t end up going into a profession in body work, you ended up in tech. How did that happen?
Marc: Yeah, I mean, no, I found out I was already far in my career, so it was like three, four years ago where I found out. But yeah, I’ve had some people told me that perhaps let’s something to explore. There’s a healing aspect of it that I can feel, so I can feel those pressure points, but I can really feel the tension also in those areas that, what’s weird about those pressure points is some of them are really painful, but some of them are a good kind of pain. So, you press a little bit and it’s like, but after a while it releases a bit of, I don’t know how to explain, I’m not a doctor, but sometimes it feels good, so I’m sure there’s something to explore, but I haven’t had the time.
Kim: Like you have all the time in the world over here.
Marc: Oh yeah. Now I focus on, it’s a superpower for a father who likes to tickle his daughter who’s very active and we play a lot and then we sometimes in her arm, on her leg, I would just press it and it just ticklish for her. But it’s fun. It’s very fast.
Kim: That’s so sweet.
Marc: Yeah.
Kim: So, tell me about if you would like to open up about these times of burnout, what happened in and around that and how did that kind of inform this idea of sensitivity?
Marc: So, here is how I make sense of it, is that those burnout happened when there was a significant demand in cognitive function to happen in my head. But not only that, there were usually two things in pair working in pair one, that demand of cognitive energy and a bit of a situation with uncertainty, risk. So, why I’m saying that is because those situations that were uncertain that were a bit risky or I felt that my level of alertness was very high and therefore my senses start to pick up a lot of information more than I need just because I feel it’s not the safest of situations. So, I’ll start, but when I started to build the business, there were times where, okay, we have to figure out, alright, at the end of this month we’ve got to have to pay all these people.
There’s a bit of an uncomfortable situation ahead if we fail, which is talking to these people or what are we going to do? And so, in that specific situations, I found that my senses become so much more alert and they require a lot of brain power and I cannot really rest properly. I cannot really stop this machine that keeps on trying to solve. And I think that’s what leads a lot to my burnout. I wouldn’t say I was in critical situations that were just starting a business, coming to a new country or moving or moving houses. I mean, those are stressful situations, but sometimes the demand, and in my case, they demand a lot of figuring out and wanting to feel safe and that things are going to be okay. And then I start to feel everything.
Kim: Especially among all that uncertainty, I feel like that us thinking so deeply about all the things that could happen.
Marc: Yeah, I mean by far uncertainty is the thing that have the most difficulty to deal with. I’m still working continuously on trying to be okay with uncertainty and try to, I’ve realized, and maybe we will come to it in the next question, but I’ve realized that I had to be able to function well. I had to make sure that level of uncertainty was acceptable for me to navigate the things I want to navigate.
Kim: Right. Not too much risk, just enough certainty to be comfortable with the uncertainty, would you say?
Marc: Yeah, or I mean, I studied entrepreneurship more than 10 years ago and after a couple years I started to realize, well, okay, I still want to be an entrepreneur. I still want to grow in that direction, but let’s make sure I can pay my bills also from let’s have a plan where I can envision paying my bills and then grow the business knowing that I’m not taking all the risks on me and then therefore grow with these. And finances are big components for, I don’t know if other highly sensitive people would tell you the same, but I feel like for me it’s like I had to make myself less vulnerable in terms of finances. So not too comfortable, but, and then if I feel okay and then I don’t need too much, but I just need to feel okay and if anything would happen, I’ll still have some time to figure out.
Kim: Figure out right next steps. Yeah, that’s got to be so tough because so much rides on the success of your own company as an entrepreneur. That’s got to be hard as a highly sensitive person because we’re so wired to sense danger and be the canary in the coal mine when it’s our own company, it’s probably an extra added pressure.
Marc: Yeah, I mean if you go on, I don’t know if it’s my chat GPT or because it seems to know me, but if you ask the worst jobs for highly sensitive people, they would quickly tell you that CEO is probably not the best choice.
Kim: Especially of a tech company. How did you end up there? How did you end up in the tech industry?
Marc: That’s what I studied. I mean, yeah, I studied microelectronics, then I had give or take eight or 10 years experience working for companies in first doing electronic safety. But then I moved to software and then eventually I realized, and I met also my partner at that time, my initial partner, business partner, and it was just the right fit, the right time, and we started it together.
Kim: How’s it going? Remind me what your company does you…
Marc: In short, we sell software. So, we help our clients solve solutions using solve problems using software. So, we build custom software for our clients. At the beginning we started purely developing software and then we started doing more design. And now we also do a lot of consulting. We are venture studio, so we also help entrepreneurs.
We give them some resources they need, help them fund raise funds, but also give them some strategic advisory to launch their digital products. And very recently, in the past two, three years, there’ve been a massive technology disruption with AI and specifically the generative AI. So, for us, it’s a huge playground to engage with our clients and to explore use cases or ways for them to embrace this new technology.
Kim: I love that you used the word playground because I feel like a lot of the conversations out there about technology and AI today are the downfall and the awful things, but you see it as an exploration. Can you tell me more about that?
Marc: Yeah, yeah, it is. Well, clearly people like myself, and there’s probably, we are in a majority in the world of people who can have an impact at their level, but we’re not going to have, at least not in the short term global impact in what we do. But so, what can we do with in the context of that is indeed quite, there’s a lot of debate around AI and how disruptive it is, and perhaps negative it could make our lives. So, in my opinion, that’s how I see it. For me, when it was launched, it was the thing I was looking for a long time in the journey that technology takes that I hope would take to find its harmony with humans. So let me unpack all this. I believe that in the world that I want to see, technology is something that works besides us, not in front of us.
So, anything that has a screen should be used, like today, we are talking, we are using a screen and we can see each other, and that’s beautiful technology. But for a lot of the things that we do, for instance, banking or for instance, exchanging information or messaging with someone or all this stuff, I’d love to see a world where there’s no more screens anymore or very much, very much less presence of technology that’s like what I call in front of us. And I could see how this could be a massive opportunity to make that vision happen. So often when we work with clients, I will always have this on top of my head, what technology am I helping my client or this startup build? And how can I help build the technology that will help to fulfill that vision? So no, I’m actually very excited about it.
I think I’m aware about, yes, there are some reasons to be worried that we’ll lose control, or not necessarily in a Terminator way, but we’ll lose control as in AI might bring a layer of complexity that humans won’t be able to handle anymore. So, we’ll become AI dependent. That is the one risk that I see as fairly reasonable and will most likely happen.
So, we are going to increase the complexity of our systems, and then we’re going to need AI to try to figure out when something doesn’t go well. So that dependency I’m, yeah, maybe a bit worried about. But at the same time, can AI help us make things simpler? We can view things this way too. So, it’s not just can AI make our society more complex, but maybe it can make our society more simple for us to navigate. It just depends how we use it and what we build with it.
Kim: Gosh, it’s such an interesting point. And I remember we had a previous conversation where you asked me, and I would like to ask you the same question. I believe it was along the lines of how do you see technology affecting us as highly sensitive people? Was that the question? Do you remember? And what would your answer be? What do you see is the role that it plays and how it affects us, and what would you change?
Marc: Essentially, I mean, not everyone has the same dream as I have to see a world without screens or with limited screens. This must be a highly sensitive person that has this hope for the world because those screens are highly demanding in cognitive function.
So, I would love to free myself from the usage of it, and I do it. And as you know, I do not have social media, for example, I spend very little time on my phone. If my colleagues in my company will be here to, they would testify that I’m very hard to reach because I do not have any notifications on my phone. I only have WhatsApp notifications. The rest are all turned off.
So yeah, I must, if I want to function, if I want to do the role that I built for myself, I need to be very aware of how I use technology in my day-to-day. So, there’s something I got to say, there are times where when I feel really stressed or I had very intense meeting, I would watch a couple of nonsense videos on YouTube. Everyone does. And yeah, it relaxes me for a bit, but after a while, something just happens in my brain. I’m like, okay, now it’s time to stop. You already relaxed. Now. It’s not necessary. But yeah, sometimes it does help.
Kim: It’s just so funny because when I think of technology, that’s all I think about is screens, I think of computers and phones. So, when you say a world with technology that’s not dependent on screens, what does that look like?
Marc: So, it’s a world where, first of all, there’s probably a lot of the things we do today with a screen, which consists in using our finger to tap on the screen. A lot of these things could be done by voice, mostly. So, if I had just for one of our clients, we work on a penant that listens to what you say. So, you could be doing a lot of these things by voice, I can tell.
And for many years, some companies have tried to build that kind of intelligence like Siri for Apple, but didn’t really pick up because the intelligence behind was not at the level that it is today. Now it’s just, it’s incredible. So, I’ll be able to tell, send this message to Kimberly very easily, but that’s a very easy function and it’s not the most interesting. But let’s say I want to travel to a country and apply for a visa.
Well, alright, so maybe I can just ask this thing. Can you help me get a visa and what do I need to prepare? And I don’t need any interface for that. I don’t need any, it’s a bit the Iron Man Jarvis scenario, and I think it’s pretty cool. Without the screens, just I could be enriched by a few information, visual informations, but not something that we hold in our hand necessary.
And I’d like to break that habit of just, I’ve just also, I don’t know if it’s a characteristic of my highly sensitive personality, but I do want to see a world where people go to the restaurant and talk to each other more. And I also want to see a world where kids also spend more time playing outside rather than playing games on their phone. And it’s just maybe I’m from that generation, so I’m a bit nostalgic and not really excited about that aspect of our lives today.
So, anything that can help us get the phones away is a win. So, I see in this technology that is going to, if you think about it, could make a bank transfer without using a phone that’s going to be the next generation. And yeah, it’s, I’m pretty sure a lot of banks, digital banks are working on it today. So, we won’t even need to open it, our apps to make a transfer or to know our balance or to even inquire from a very old transaction that happened. And that’s great. That’s a better world.
Kim: That’s fascinating. I’m almost getting the sense that it’s more of a cognitive interaction with technology and less of the poking around and the visual and the looking into the screen, it’s just like you’re more in a flow with technology, it’s more of a creative space, actually.
Marc: Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. There’s just too much visual information, it’s so crowded.
When you look at your phone, you’re looking at one specific area of the phone, but the rest is also there and there’s some ads and there’s some stuff that try to attract your attention. So, let’s say for example, with the voice or sounds, it is just, if it’s reasonable, it would not be too, hopefully too invasive. It’s just functional, hopefully. And there might be some applications in the future that would say, okay, you can use for free, but from time to time someone say a little slogan from a brand and then you listen to that slogan. But yeah, no, I don’t see that really be bothering. I think people would just not be interested.
Kim: Less stimulation.
Marc: I think less demand of cognitive energy.
Kim: Yeah. So, what would you say is the thing you struggle with most about your high sensitivity? What’s the challenge for you?
Marc: The thing I struggle the most now is definitely finding time to recharge. But it’s more due to my busy lifestyle style between my company, and so, I take care of my daughter. Juggling between the two is sometimes quite demanding, and I feel I need a lot of quiet time. And so, this is the part that I struggle a lot with something else, but I think this is more linked to my level of alertness. Alertness, you probably pronounce this better than I, multitasking is the most horrible thing for me. I will enter a state of panic very quickly, but there are times where I can’t do otherwise.
And then I know and I’m like, alright, I’m going to have this pounding sensation in an hour because in my chest I know I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do, but okay, I’m just going to do it. And yeah, an hour later I feel well, and I’m like, yeah, okay. I still haven’t learned my lesson. And so multitasking and finding time to recharge are those things that I’m still struggling to adopt in my life.
Kim: What do you love and celebrate about this trait that you have? What do you enjoy about it?
Marc: Yeah, there are a few perks. Clearly I, I’ll start with the biggest one for me is I feel that it’s pushing me to, because I can, how to say? Because I want those changes to happen, because I feel it, I feel the need for those change to happen, I will be, I’m a very driven character. So, I did not enter entrepreneurship just for the sake of being my own boss, but more for the empowerment part of it and the ability to connect with incredible people and work on impact. And I would not have been able to do it if I did not have that motivation that is rooted in sensitivity.
I do want to see more habitat for animals. I don’t want to see beautiful environments and more animals for my daughter’s future. Or I feel something when I see plastic thrown on the side of the road or things like this. And I think that really fuels that energy, that flame burning inside me that just keeps on giving me reasons to continue and to, so it’s a beautiful fuel for motivation, I would say. The thing that I love the most about it, I’m saying that in, and I’m not so sure if this is how everyone works, but I do tend to see people who might drive or motivation in their life. And I feel like I’m always curious because I’m always so motivated, I need to do what I feel is necessary. So, I just continue.
So, this would be, obviously, I feel I can read people a bit better. I can choose. Alright, so let’s go into the thing I’m probably the most proud of is that, so my company Slash, slash.co, if you want to visit the website is composed of people that are all incredible to work with. Everyone, every single one has been selected because they fit a company culture that’s very, very open, very inclusive, supportive, and I felt that that was possible because of this high sensitivity.
So, I forgot who said that, but I never remember who tell those smart quotes. But essentially, the culture of your company is defined by what you are willing to accept. And then if you are willing to accept certain behaviors in your company, then this will become the norm and people are going to say, oh, okay, this is okay then, okay, that’s the culture of the company.
So, I think that high sensitivity had helped me to identify very quickly when something was not okay, that I wouldn’t not be comfortable that this would define the culture of the company. So, there were some tough times with a few of the people that we hired that did not have that culture fit, but because we identified and addressed sometimes successfully, sometimes non successfully, this problem early, then it never affected the culture of the company.
So, I’d say that aspect was very helpful and eventually the best of the best is now that we are a bit further in the growth of the business already been nine years, we’ll celebrate the 10 years next year. Hopefully, we sometimes have more the luxury to be able to decide who we are going to work for or not. And there are some individuals or some companies that would just not fit our culture. And I think this is another good skill to have is to almost see the future where, okay, this is going to be a difficult relationship with these clients, or do we really want to go there? Or how can we better prepare ourselves for that? So that’s very useful.
Kim: Gosh, it sounds like even though it’s demanding and even though it’s a lot of work, it’s really helped you build this beautiful culture and see exactly where you want to go and who you want to work with. You built your own company that you’re just loving.
Marc: If you’d asked me 10 years ago why I wanted to build the company, it would be to decide who I want to work with. It wouldn’t be to become a zillionaire or to not have a boss anymore. For those think that those who want to build their own company to not have a boss anymore, well, you’ll soon realize that for companies like mine, all your clients become your boss, your boss.
Kim: Now you have many bosses.
Marc: Instead of having one boss, I have only given time now between 10 to 20 bosses that tell me what they want, what they need. So that’s not the win. The win is really in choosing who you want to work with, what team are you going to assemble and what do you want to do? You want to work on and have the luxury to bring a bit of your vision into your team, but also influence a bit your clients and have an interesting impact.
Kim: So, what advice would you give highly sensitive people who may be struggling to find happiness and purpose in their life?
Marc: This is interesting because I will just start with the first part of the question. People who are struggling, people who are struggling, if you’re highly sensitive or you feel you qualify, if you compare yourself to someone who’s not, then you have to take care of yourself three to five times more than anyone else.
I work with people who I would not qualify as highly sensitive. Not that it’s good or bad, it’s just like they have a different personality. I think they can navigate the world and their life, and they can function without that commitment to take care of themselves. They still take care of themselves, but they can finish the day and go have some drinks or have some fun with friends.
If you’re highly sensitive and you are in demanding jobs, you have no choice. I was talking about multitasking before. I was talking about taking a rest. You’re not like everyone else. You get figure how you function best and what works best for you, what time you turn off your phone in the evening, what apps you don’t want notifications from, and be merciless with protecting your wellbeing. You have a gift, but if you’re not protecting it…
Kim: That is such a great point.
Marc: I’m not talking about putting yourself first, but still, you have to, and some people would not understand, but it’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I don’t have to tell the world that, yeah, I’m highly sensitive, so I can only hours a day, I need to take a two-hour nap every afternoon. No, you don’t have to explain. You just do it if people have struggled to understand, and you can start to explain a little bit how you function based or how you work best.
Kim: Yeah, that boundary.
Marc: Yeah. I’ve realized that. I think for, I don’t know if it’s the same for most highly sensitive people, but we kind of feel like in high-demanding situations, I’ll give you an example that happened to me is I would say I would not be the situations of crisis when we’ll have to think fast and organize fast and execute fast. I would probably not put myself first on the line to like, okay, let me take care of the crisis if it’s very, very intense and with very short deadlines.
That’s one characteristic that I’d know about myself. And I know that in times like this, I can do part of it, but I wouldn’t be able the crisis to be able to be the crisis master. And there are some jobs that when I see the people doing it, I still can’t understand how they manage wedding planners. I don’t know if you’ve ever…
Kim: No, it sounds awful. Yeah.
Marc: Even going to a wedding and seeing these people work stresses me out. I don’t know how they do that.
Kim: No, know your limits. Know what you’re not good at, because we always try and fit ourselves in these boxes. And then like you said, the chaos, and it’s just, it’s not for us…delegate.
Marc: No, exactly. Delegate or find support, but there are things you’re great at. Then there are things that you’re just not wired for and yeah. Okay. Now I remember what I was, I remember what I, no, I covered, sorry. It’s a bit late.
Kim: Thank you so much for joining me, Marc. It was really a pleasure to speak to you today. How can people follow along on your journey? I know you don’t have social, but you’re on LinkedIn, right?
Marc: Yeah, yeah. I do have a LinkedIn account. You can find that account. If you go search just my name, Marc Gamet. And if you go on our website slash.co. And yeah, I’m very happy and pleased that you’ve asked me to have that conversation with you, cause it’s like free therapy sessions.
Kim: Oh, good.
Marc: Ask me some questions, and I just talk about random stuff. So, thanks for doing that. I’m going to sleep well.
Thank you so much for listening in on my conversation with Marc. I hope his perspective helped you see how sensitivity and innovation can coexist — and even shape a gentler, more human future in tech.
And if you’re an HSP who’s struggling at work or with finding time to recharge, like Marc and so many of us are, that’s where I can help. There’s a brand-new download available at my website, happyhspcoaching.com. If you go to my homepage, you’ll see a popup where you can grab your free Career Clarity Guidebook and Stress Less Toolkit. These two resources will not only help you figure out where you want to go next in your career, but they also teach you everything you need to know about how to calm your nervous system in the process…because let’s face it, career transitions are stressful, especially for HSPs.
So go to happyhspcoaching.com to download these free resources, and a reminder that if you need extra support in this area, I offer free one-on-one Career Clarity Breakthrough Sessions, where you can spend some time with me to untangle where you are in your career and gain a stronger vision of your next steps. You can sign up for this by clicking the “contact me” tab on my website at happyhspcoaching.com.
So again, thanks for listening. Until next time! Take care.
About Marc Gamet:
Marc Gamet is an entrepreneur and CEO of Slash.co, a Southeast Asian digital innovation and venture-building company serving global clients. Cofounded in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore, Slash.co blends software development, product strategy, and organizational leadership to create simple, elegant, and user-centered digital solutions.
Marc is passionate about human-centered design, GenAI, and building meaningful work cultures. Based in Bali with his family, he balances leadership, creativity, and fatherhood while pursuing a vision of technology that improves lives and shapes regenerative futures.
Follow along with Marc’s journey:
Website: https://slash.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcgamet/
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About Kimberly:
Kimberly Marshall is a career coach for highly sensitive people (HSPs) and host of The Happy HSP Podcast. After 20 years in the publishing industry working for companies like Time Inc., Monster.com, and W. W. Norton, she left her corporate career to pursue work that better suited her HSP needs. She now helps HSPs overcome burnout and low confidence in the workplace and create gentle and nurturing careers that bring them lots of purpose, meaning, and joy.
Through her work and creative ventures, Kimberly hopes to shed more light on the reality of living with high sensitivity and inspire more HSPs to embrace their empathetic, loving, and gentle natures.
Hosted/produced by Kimberly Marshall
Edited by Fonzie Try Media
Artwork by Tara Corola