First, there is only ever one first mover and many fast followers. Thus, it's not entirely surprising that at least one fast follower would dominate the leader.
Secondly, the failure rate calculations are highly suspect due to historical redactionism. If a first mover fails, it will still be remembered due to it's contribution to the field. If a fast follower fails, it becomes hard to even discover that it existed in the first place.
Think of this in terms of car companies. Ford was the first mover but, up until the 1920's, there were almost a thousand different car companies started by various people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_United_States_a... . 99% of them failed, some had moderate success and a few like Toyota & GM had enough outsized success to eventually beat Ford. Being a "fast follower" in this case almost always meant you were dead.