SAN FRANCISCO — For the last three years, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has defied what financial analysts call the law of large numbers.

That streak may be coming to an end. On Monday, Alphabet said revenue in its most recent quarter increased 17 percent from the same period last year, to $36.3 billion. That was about $1 billion short of Wall Street’s expectations.

The Silicon Valley company’s revenue had grown more than 20 percent every quarter since 2016.

The law of large numbers is simple: As a company gets bigger, it becomes difficult to find new ways to make money and maintain rapid growth. The issue has dogged other big tech companies like Apple in recent years.

Alphabet explained the revenue shortfall with a very big-company answer. It said the strong United States dollar dented revenue by $1.2 billion. Google executives rattled off a long list of currencies weakening against the dollar, including the euro, the British pound, Brazilian real and Indian rupee. The company said it expected foreign currency to be an issue again in the current quarter.