I had to look up the painkiller v.s. vitamin distinction - I hadn't heard that one before. Evidently it's common startup folklore these days but I think it was first popularized by Don Dodge in 2006, here's the post via the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20060329104930/https://dondodge....
This seems like a terrible analogy, as a vitamin is something you can't live without, while pain killers mask the problem. I'd think one would want to be a vitamin and not a pain killer, but the opposite suggestion is being made. Maybe that's why this hasn't stood the test of time.
simonw|2 months ago
nanomonkey|2 months ago
tonioab|2 months ago