Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901, Ivrea, Piedmont – 27 February 1960, died on a train from Milan to Lausanne) was an Italian engineer, politician and industrialist whose entrepreneurial activity thrived on the idea that profit should be reinvested for the benefits of the whole society.

He was son of the founder of Olivetti, Camillo Olivetti, and Luisa Revel, the daughter of a prominent Waldensian pastor and scholar. Adriano Olivetti was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti typewriters, calculators, and computers

Adriano's father Camillo, who was Jewish, believed that his children could get a better education at home. Adriano's formative years were spent under the tutelage of his mother, daughter of the local Waldensian pastor, an educated and sober woman. Also, as a socialist, Camillo emphasized the non-differentiation between manual and intellectual work.

Nevertheless, after graduation in chemical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin in 1924 he joined the company for a short while. When he became undesirable to Mussolini's Fascist regime, his father sent him to the United States to learn the roots of American industrial power.

For the same reasons he later went to England. Upon his return he married Paola Levi, a daughter of Giuseppe Levi and a sister of Natalia Ginzburg and of his good friend; a marriage that produced three children but did not last long. . . . Continued