Scientific and technological progress is largely driven by firms in many domains, including artificial intelligence and vaccine development. However, we do not know yet whether the success of firms' research activities exhibits dynamic regularities and some degree of predictability. By inspecting the research lifecycles of 7,440 firms, we find that the economic value of a firm's early patents is an accurate predictor of various dimensions of a firm's future research success. At the same time, a smaller set of future top-performers do not generate early patents of high economic value, but they are detectable via the technological value of their early patents. Importantly, the observed predictability cannot be explained by a cumulative advantage mechanism, and the observed heterogeneity of the firms' temporal success patterns markedly differs from patterns previously observed for individuals' research careers. Our results uncover the dynamical regularities of the research success of firms, and they could inform managerial strategies as well as policies to promote entrepreneurship and accelerate human progress.

翻译：科技进步在很大程度上是由公司在许多领域推动的,包括人工智能和疫苗开发。然而,我们尚不知道公司研究活动的成功是否具有动态的规律性和一定程度的可预测性。通过检查7 440家公司的研究生命周期,我们发现公司早期专利的经济价值是对公司未来研究成功的各个方面的准确预测。与此同时,少数未来顶尖先锋并不产生具有高经济价值的早期专利,但可以通过其早期专利的技术价值来发现。重要的是,所观察到的可预测性不能用累积优势机制来解释,所观察到的公司时间成功模式与以往观察到的个人研究事业模式明显不同。我们的结果揭示了公司研究成功动态的规律,它们可以指导管理战略以及促进创业和加快人类进步的政策。