You need both, I agree that given metrics don't predict the possible futures that depart significantly from the current state, you do need to support innovation

You need both, I agree that given metrics don't predict the possible futures that depart significantly from the current state, you do need to support innovation without numbers to always back those ideas up. For every iPhone there is for example the wireless technology that powers the iPhone, which needed a huge amount of data driven decisions to get mobile masts in the right places, reliably send and receive data... The battery tech. Each of those innovations was the product of some good ideas combined with data and improvements that lead to the next innovations with countless failed innovations along the way. I think you place too much emphasis on the "genius" that combines these novel ideas, and I'm not saying it isn't required, but I think there's a lot of these ideas that die and a lot more data behind them than is talked about. For the iPhone to work it had to to be at a time where the tech was right, the price of components could enable it to be sold at an acceptable price-point, the UX had to be tested on countless people. To be more succinct, the right amount of optimisation, data driven improvement and innovation combine with the right timing. Ceaseless optimisation can lead a good product to become horrible, but you need numbers. Surely you can see the symbiosis between things like data driven battery improvement and optimisation and the possiblity of something like the iPhone. The iPhone would not exist without data driven decisions. It wouldn't exist without vision and risk taking either.