Samuel S. Vaughan spent more than 30 years at Doubleday, first in sales and advertising in 1952, later in editing and acquisitions, and finally in management, becoming president, publisher, and editor in chief. He left the company in 1986, around the time it was sold to the German conglomerate Bertelsmann AG and ceased to be a family-owned business. He was later an editor and executive at Random House, now also part of Bertelsmann.