Maybe, there are lots of awesome places and people like different things. But I’ve travelled a ton and stayed long term in a whole lot of places and Texas is in many ways one of the better places to be in the US, which appears to be generally borne out by the continuing net inflows to the population.

There’s certainly more diversity in parts of California, and “low funding” may refer to incentives and tax breaks given to companies to do business in an area.

Where are they going?

Easy. Home.

Remote work, despite what many of the Business Journals have been doomsaying, is still very much a viable option. So they don’t have to stay in Texas, and they can operate from wherever.

North Carolina.

https://www.techelevator.com/north-carolina-tech-companies-are-thriving/#:~:text=In fact%2C Apple%2C Google%2C,creating thousands of new jobs.