[10] Hurd spent 25 years at NCR Corporation, culminating in a two-year tenure as chief executive officer and president.

He began working for NCR as a junior salesman in San Antonio in 1980 after Rodney Gray hired him and subsequently held a variety of positions in general management, operations, and sales and marketing.

On September 22, 2006, Hurd succeeded Pat Dunn as board chairman after she resigned due to the pretexting controversy.

[11] In March 2009, Hurd forecast that HP's sales could drop as much as 5% that year, in the midst of the recession, but that its profit would increase by nearly 6%.

[13] While the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq was heavily criticized back in 2002, Hurd managed to make the combined company execute successfully, something his predecessor Fiorina had failed to do.

[14] The New York Times said Hurd had "pulled off one of the great rescue missions in American corporate history, refocusing the strife-ridden company and leading it to five years of revenue gains and a stock that soared 130 percent".

[11] During the 2009 recession, depending on job role Hurd imposed a temporary 5%, 10% or 15% pay cut on all employees and removed many benefits.

Hurd's emphasis on short-term results and financial management, particularly cutting costs, taking the lead in the PC business, plus acquisitions (EDS and 3Com), were successful in raising profits and shareholder return.

Detractors, however, viewed it as a continuation of empire building, which started with the acquisition of Compaq in 2002 several years before Hurd joined HP.

[20] In 2009, Hurd made a total of $24,201,448, including a base salary of $1,268,750, stock award of $6,648,092, cash bonus of $15,809,414 and $475,192 in benefits and other compensation.

[21] On August 6, 2010, Hurd resigned from all of his positions at HP, with the Board of Directors appointing CFO Cathie Lesjak as interim CEO.

[25][26] Outside observers suggested the company's board of directors had made a poor decision and may have had mixed motives in requiring his resignation in order to mitigate negative publicity.

[42] Under Hurd, Oracle accelerated its focus on cloud technology and modernized its legacy software to compete with smaller cloud-based firms.