I’m skeptical about this, at least for finance. Your second link points out that these firms are between a rock and a hard place: senior employees and leadership are already established in NYC, and junior employees/new hires want to move there (both for the experience, but also because it exposes them to competitors/alternative employers).

Perhaps it’s different this time, but the underlying message in the past has been more about negotiation with the city and state rather than an earnest intent to relocate to an entirely new state (and regulatory environment, etc).

I don't expect it to displace NYC but it's a good shift and it's good to have additional clusters arise.

For example, if you were always specialized in Energy, Houston/Dallas would have always been comparable to NYC, or if you were specialized in TMT then LA and SF were similar.

Reading between the lines, I'm assuming Austin was chosen not just for QoL but also to solidify an Energy and probably AI and Data Center thesis as well. Also, I'd assume most backoffice roles like Accounting, Compliance, IT, etc would be shifted to Austin similar to what JPMC did in Dallas.