You can't really make a living off of being a self-taught mathematician, whereas you can by knowing how to program, and run your own business.
The only way to make a living as a mathematician is to into academia, so that why you see all mathematician in academics. Basically it isn't that academia produces mathematician, although it helps, but that it attracts mathematicians. Just as, say, Y-Combinator attracts good startups.
You can't really make a living off of being a self-taught mathematician, whereas you can by knowing how to program, and run your own business.
The only way to make a living as a mathematician is to into academia, so that why you see all mathematician in academics. Basically it isn't that academia produces mathematician, although it helps, but that it attracts mathematicians. Just as, say, Y-Combinator attracts good startups.