#FF00AA

Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey is back working at the company on a once-a-week-or-so basis, three industry sources tell us. Dorsey is working on “fixing” Twitter’s product, sources say.

How hopeless is that company?

There are two possibilities: either Dorsey was ousted because he had no idea how to handle and grow Twitter and make it profitable (bear in mind that his successive initial ideas of the service all had rather little to do with what it became), and there’s no reason to bring him back; or he’s Twitter’s Steve Jobs, the only guy able to turn that ship around (which I seriously doubt, judging from anything I’ve ever read on the subject), and in that case you don’t get him back for one day a week, you buy his company and put him back in the CEO seat. Do you really think Jobs could have saved Apple by consulting in his off-hours, while still managing NeXT on weekdays? (Again, not that I think the latter could be true. I mean, really? Square?)

In either case, this is a seriously desperate, worrisome move from a company that’s always had trouble defining its own product, not to mention its business strategy. “Brilliant” is just about the very last thing you could call it.