I agree with that, though that's still a somewhat different idea of "risk" than companies have. It's perfectly possible to do "risky" research in academia in the sense of something that may not pan out into practical applications in the next 50 years... if a funding body has made it a priority. If the NSF has decided that Foo Research is a priority and will be funded at $100m/yr for the next 5 years, then it is not risky for the professor to research in that area, but it might be risky research in the sense that it may never pan out to be worth that $500m NSF investment. In industry, that kind of research may never have happened.

What's increasingly hard to do in academia is to take risks individually: if you decide something is under-researched and should be a priority, rather than waiting for a funding agency to decide it's a priority, you'll have tough going.