I heartily second the recommendation for "The Idea Factory"! I'm currently reading this book and aside from the seriously impressive run of successes, the characters are really quite amusing at times too. E.g., Shannon built a desktop calculator that operated using Roman numerals only ("THROBAC") in order to amuse himself. And some of the whimsical creations were pretty impressive in their own right. E.g., his maze-solving mouse "Theseus" learned the maze layout on progressive runs through the maze by using relay-based logic.
I'll happily "third" the recommendation for The Idea Factory. It really is an inspiring read, and I expect many firms could find some actionable takeaways to apply within their own organizations, even today. Yes, Bell Labs had some specific circumstances that allowed them some luxuries that other firms may not have, but their success is not as simple as "they had a monopoly, herp derp".
As others have mentioned Xerox PARC, I also recommend the "PARC counterpart" to this book titled
"Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael A. Hiltzik. It was a beautiful summer read, full of amusing anecdotes and written in a laid back style while still conveying lots of information about the environment in PARC.
Turing’s Cathedral was an interesting book on the computing origins topic too, and chronographically it felt like it segwayed into The Idea Factory well.
