McMurtry is a retired Silicon Valley venture capital investor. Beginning in 1969, he co-founded several venture capital partnerships, including Technology Venture Investors (TVI) and Instituttonal Venture Associates(IVA). Portfolio companies included Adaptec, Altera, Compaq, Intuit, KLA-Tencor, Linear Technology Corporation, Microsoft, NBI, Nellcor, PMC Sierra, Quantum, ROLM Corporation, SpectraLink, Sun Microsystems, Synopsys, Triad Systems Corporation, VeriFone, and Visio. Before entering the venture capital business, McMurtry spent 12 years in engineering and management positions with GTE-Sylvania.

McMurtry was a founding member of the California Council on Science and Technology. He formerly served as a trustee of Rice University, Stanford University (Chaiman 2004-2008), and the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington. He has served as president of both the National Venture Capital Association and the Western Association of Venture Capitalists.

He holds B.A. and B.S.E.E. degrees from Rice University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).