Also, the article references how Nashville is providing some competition. Pretty sure Tennessee is not really any better than Texas in many respects.
Oracle is following a tax incentive. Any company willing to move today is also willing to move in 3-5 years when your tax incentives go away. Playing the tax incentive game is stupid for the populace, but the politicians love the press when somebody comes in. None of these big companies that are playing tax incentive games are employing people that require advanced degrees--they're just body shops.
2) Individuals, however, are finding out that they care more than they thought
While Austin is an oasis of sanity in Texas, it is still in Texas.
This means that your healthcare is abnormally affected by the existence of nitwits. This means that anti-vax is rampant around you, and you are more likely to get Covid, measles, etc. Education is affected by religious dorkbags of varying sanity unless you can completely opt out for private schools. Your dating pool has a much larger chunk of religious people for better and worse. And the cost of living isn't that much worse than California--which generally has better weather.
Gee I keep wondering why California keeps losing people to Texas
I kinda can't believe I'm saying something positive about Greg Abbott, but in early and mid-2020, his Covid policies were quite sensible. He locked down for a short while but understood that long term lockdowns weren't a viable solution and opened back up pretty quickly. He then instituted a statewate mask mandate, but he said that the rules would at least be based on some scientifically rational thinking - that the mandates would be in response to infection levels and the capacity at hospitals. This, to me anyway, seemed a lot more rational than some coastal liberal bastions that were closing beaches, etc.
But Abbott got absolutely pilloried by the far right GOP for his mandates, so then he tacked hard to the right and passed laws prohibiting any kind of restrictions by local authorities. It was a clear and undeniable capitulation to the far right, and I think that experience probably kinda spooked him. Since then he has only doubled down on policies favorable to the MAGA crowd, etc.
I guess you hate freedom or something?