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Gary’s take on metrics was that if it didn’t change his behaviour it was only a distraction.

The problem with that line of thinking is that it only works in hindsight. You need metrics to know what you're doing right as much as what you're doing wrong.

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I agree in principle but BuiltWith is quite different to most startups/business which warrants different behaviours. It's good to know what you're doing wrong but it still has to past the "does it change my behaviour test".

Significant flow of ideas and feedback of which only a few are executed.

Metrics that don't change your behaviour are a distraction, but you can't know which metrics fall in to that category unless you gather as much as possible. To paraphrase John Wanamaker's famous line about advertising, "Half the metrics you gather won't change your behaviour; the trouble is you don't know which half."

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