The short answer is “yes”, if your talking about being good at advanced mathematics. (A person who is good at the executing the algorithms of arithmetic may or may not be highly intelligent. Success at the more sophisticated forms of mathematics would be needed to confirm high intelligence.)
In our technological society, people who excel at the kind of abstract thinking involved in advanced mathematics are aggressively recruited in business and industry–especially in the technological fields. Apple, Microsoft, and all of the top investment firms on Wall Street seek the best mathematical brains in what Bill Gates calls the “IQ wars.”
Jim Simons, the founder of one of the top investment firms on Wall Street, when asked for advice about founding a company, responded, “Work with the smartest people you can, hopefully smarter than you.” Simons was an accomplished researcher in pure mathematics and he hired, almost exclusively, people with a Ph.D. in mathematics, theoretical physics, or computer science.
