I think that Stephenson does a really good job of connecting the personalities of Randy and Lawrence. The first thing I noticed was that they are both described as having trouble remembering names. I recently noticed a paragraph on page 488 about Lawrence, that reminded me of Randy's idea of License-Plate-making. "The rest might seem like glorious conquest to people like the General, but to Turing, and now to Waterhouse, it just looks like tedious mopping-up. It is exciting to discover electrons and figure out the equations that govern their movement; it is boring to use those principles to design electric can openers. From here on out, it's all can openers."
I totally agree. the entire family (randy's family) seems similar, too.
Yeah--They're both pretty socially awkward, nerdy, tune people out, into codes...Stephenson makes them very similar.
However, just like Randy mentions in the book when he is talking about engineers vs mathematicians in his family, Randy seems to have a little more of a social awareness than his grandfather did. He does not seem quite as awkward around girls and it appears he can converse in a more "normal" fashion.