Math is not one "thing". It's a large subject area with many components, a huge portion of which most programmers can an do forget in their professional careers (e.g. not every programmer creates statistical data mining, DSP, 3D, and aerodynamics modeling software, etc.)

Furthermore, one doesn't have to like math to be good at it, or good at just the portions required for most programming tasks.

I could easily see hiring an enthusiastic puzzle solver who never took calculus over someone who aced diffEQ but hated any kind of logic puzzle.