I am of the opinion that:

1) There's a high chance that the CIA had something to do either with the fate of the company, or the death of Adriano Olivetti himself (on a train, supposedly a heart attack). But I don't necessarily buy the "evil" version here. In fact, Adriano Olivetti had a relationship with CIA officials. [0]

2) Olivetti could have been the Italian Intel or HP or IBM, if Adriano didn't die. In fact, they opened a research center in Silicon Valley, and were poised to lead the desktop computer revolution that happened starting from the late 70s and early 80s.

I can't find the article I had in mind, but this one at least gives you some perspectives on how great, and ahead of its time, the Olivetti company was. [1]

3) There should be a much, much better book to investigate and tell the story.

4) If you think the Google campus was innovative... Adriano Olivetti created a better version of it in the late 40s and 50s in Italy. He was also a prolific writer, his "La città dell'uomo" (the human city) was at the center of his views on how industry, society, work, life could be interpreted [2].

5) Finally, there are several people from the Olivetti labs that ended up doing great things at other silicon valley companies.

Again, I can't find much (or perhaps I am not spending enough time doing it), but this could be a good start [3].

[0]: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-0...

[1]: https://qz.com/455328/this-italian-company-pioneered-innovat...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/13/story-cities-...

[3]: https://mindthebridge.com/giacomo-marini-mindthechat/

Edit: (and thanks to user @Rochus) I am talking about people like Federico Faggin. Just look at his wikipedia page. Just impressive. [4]

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin