Why you should let your steak get to room temp before cooking

I am a sous chef at a one-Michelin starred restaurant and i believe this is something most people don't know or refuse to believe. If you think about this, it's really common sense; if your steak is stone cold in the middle then you're gonna have to overcook the outside to get the center medium rare. The steak on the left was cooked from cold, 40 degrees F. The one on the right was cooked from RT. Do you see the difference? There's a thick band of well done meat around the center of the left steak. The right steak is MR all the way to the edge with very little well done meat. And the picture doesn't even so it justice, it was much more prevalent in real life believe me. I cooked the cold steak (the left one) for a full 2 minutes longer as well. When you let the steak come completely up to room temperature first, there's less of a difference between the final temp and the initial one, which results in a large center of MR (or whatever temp you like) going all the way to the edge. You can tell a steak cooked from cold just by cutting into it. There will be a circle of MR in the center with a ring of medium around it and a ring of MW around that and then the sear on the outside. You want a big fat MR center with a nice hard sear on the outside.
Now every. single. fucking time I read a pro chefs suggestions on this they say "leave it out for 20 min to let it come to RT" Every fucking Chef says this. From Gordon Ramsey to Paula Deen to Chef boy-r-fuckin Dee. Bullshit! They MUST be saying that for legal purposes or something. Well not me guys! I'm gonna tell you the truth no one else will. here goes:
WE LEAVE OUR STEAKS OUT FOR HOURS!!!
It takes WAY longer than 20 min for any size steak to get to RT in the middle. At LEAST one hour, but 2 is better. ALL high end places do this.You think Mortons or Ruth Chris is cooking their steaks from cold? No way. I worked at a steak house that had one Michelin star in the past and 2 hours before service we would take the cart with all our steaks for the day on it out of the fridge 2 hours before service, so around 3pm. And they weren't put back until about 11pm. Granted we went through so much steaks it was unlikely that any on that original cart were still there. We'd pull more from the fridge around 6 or 7 and those were the ones to get put back.
The FDA guidelines say no more than 4 hours in the "danger zone" (that's between 40 and 140 F). But they also say that cooking your steak to MR is illegal so take it how you will.
Go ahead and tell me it's gross and if you feel sketchy about it at home then better safe than sorry right? But we use VERY high quality meat that we butcher ourselves and the turn over is very high so there is very little chance of the steak becoming contaminated with food-bourne bacteria that will make you sick.
Leaving a steak you bought from Safeway out for 5 hours might not be smart. You don't know when it was cut from the loin or how long it's been sitting there or how many trucks it's been on since the cow got slaughtered. I've actually met the farmer who raises the cows for the beef we get. Super nice guy and when he comes it to eat he doesn't pay for a thing.
The meme might be a bit overkill to be honest, it doesn't HAVE to be RT. But I promise you'll get a much better steak this way, weather you want rare, MR or medium. If you like MW or well (and its fine if you do I wont judge you, well not out loud or in writing at least, lol) then you might actually be better off cooking it from cold.
Hope this helps and that you'll find it interesting fellow imurgians!

TL;DR A steak needs at least an hour to come to RT and while it'll result in a better steak for sure, don't do it if it makes you feel squeamish

EDIT*** PLEASE READ: Honestly guys, I never even would have preformed this experiment if it wasn't for you. I've been wanting to do this forever for my own benefit but never got around to it. But I've been getting so many messages from people encouraging me and telling me they appreciate what I'm doing and that they want more. It really means a lot to me and if I don't respond to your PMs please don't be upset. I get a lot and don't have time for them all but when you guys tell me this kind of stuff helps you it means the world to me. Thank you all so much and I hope you know that even if you disagree with me that I still think each and everyone of you guys rock!