Most things are not as risky as they seem.
If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.
You should be giving out a lot of equity to your employees.
The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.
You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.