Twitter Gets Its (Part-Time) Messiah: Dorsey Officially Returns to Lead Product

Jack Dorsey will return to Twitter to lead its product team, he announced today.

The Twitter inventor’s return to lead the company he was kicked out of is reminiscent of Apple’s restoration of CEO Steve Jobs, and Twitter is similarly hopeful that Dorsey’s vision will lead it to greatness on his second run.

However, there’s at least a couple differences: Dorsey will remain CEO of Square, the payments company he founded after leaving Twitter. (Dorsey will be CEO of Square “forevermore,” he said in a tweet.) And Twitter already has a CEO: Dick Costolo.

Before Dorsey agreed to rejoin, Twitter had made multiple attempts to hire a high-profile product star from outside the company–with candidates like Google’s Sundar Pichai and Neal Mohan considering taking the gig.

Meanwhile, Dorsey, who has been chairman all along, had been helping Twitter in an expanded role since last fall when Costolo took over from Evan Williams.

Negotiations for Dorsey’s return were first reported last week.

Twitter as a product is not terrifically different than when Dorsey came up with the idea, though obviously the stakes are much higher now. Can a part-time guy–albeit the guy–get the job done?