In a fireside chat held in San Francisco on January 23, 2019, Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov and DocuSign founder Tom Gonser discussed the transformative potential of smart contracts. Tom Gonser, who successfully pioneered the adoption of electronic signatures with DocuSign, highlighted the parallels between DocuSign's journey and Chainlink's current efforts to automate business processes and reduce costs through smart contracts. Gonser emphasized the need for robust APIs to connect smart contracts with real-world data, which Chainlink aims to provide through its oracle solutions. Sergey and Tom both believe that smart contracts offer significant efficiency and reliability benefits, potentially revolutionizing industries like derivatives and insurance by addressing trust issues inherent in these sectors. As an official mentor and advisor to Chainlink, Gonser brings valuable insights from his experience in digital agreements, supporting Chainlink's vision of creating a universal open standard for data connectivity across systems. They anticipate that as smart contracts gain traction, they will deliver a competitive edge to early adopters, reminiscent of the widespread acceptance of electronic signatures.